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COP^T^IGHT DEPOSIT. 



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THE FAILURE ""'' 



OF 



PROTESTANTISM 



IN NEW YORK 



AND ITS ^ CAUSES:: A i' 



BY 

THOMAS DIXON, Jr., 
Pastor of the People's Churchy Academy of Music ^ New York, 



SECOND EDmON./-j,^-^^,^3,^^ 

The Strauss & Rehn Publishing C^/, <^-^-yt^J ;/iM>e 
1896. 






COP^R'lGHTf 1896, 

:V|CTPR Q.^/:;'GTRAUSS, 



I-C Control Number 




tmp96 028043 



n 



2Delitcateti 

TO 

GEO. D. HERRON. 

A Modern Prophet of the Kingdom of God, 

Professor of Applied Christianity 

IN Iowa College. 



AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



This little book says and proves that Protestantism is a fail- 
ure in New York. Three answers have already been hurled at 
my head by the Theological Grannies in this neighborhood. 
*'You are an infidel!" "You are a sensationalist!'* **You are a 
failure yourself!'* Quite true, dear grannies, from your point of 
view. But the answers are irrelevant. 

I might be an infidel with full grown horn, hoof and tail, and 
still Protestantism be a failure in New York, or I might be so 
supremely orthodox as to believe that Pope Leo XIII. is the scar- 
let woman of the Apocalypse, and that every man who differs 
with me in this view is a liar, a thief, a hypocrite, a brute or a 
Jesuit — and still Protestantism might be a failure in New York. 
Then, suppose I am a sensationalist. What of it ? Truth is 
stranger than fiction, and nature more miraculous than miracle. 
The most sensational discoveries of this century have all been 
simple facts. A statement may be sensational, and its author 
a prophet or a clown, a philosopher or a fool, and yet it may be a 
fact. 

Again, it may be true that I am a failure — all the greater pity 
since I am a Protestant minister! This is not an answer. It is 
a confirmation. It is a confession. This is simply piling on the 
agony ! 

While I dis-like the business of these denominiational worthies, 
which is simply the perpetuation of ignorance by the use of the 
printing press, I assure them of my kindliest personal feelings, 
and still hope for the best. 

T. D., Jr. 
New York, February 5, 1896. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



It has been a gratifying surprise to me that this little book 
goes into its second edition within nine months, in spite of the 
real agonies of our political crisis. It has been the policy of the 
Church press in and around New York to carefully ignore it, and 
thus deny la hearing. The plan has not worked. Beloved, you 
have or will frankly and promptly meet the issues raised. It must 
be done sooner or later. The sooner the better. To my surprise 
the Roman Catholic press has uniformly given fair land intelli- 
gent revises of the book in spite of its explicit criticisms of the 
Roman policy and hopes. 

T. D., Jr. 
New York, Dec. 1, 1896. 



Onlv a Few of the Many Press Reviews 
of First Edition. 



From the New York '* WoiM." 
"The Failure of Protestantism in NEW YORK and its 
causes" is full of pepper and spice; that will not delight the or- 
thodox, but its facts deserve the alTtention of thoughtful men, 
however much they may disagree with the remedies proposed 
by the writer. 

From the '' Bevieic of Bevleics." 
Mr. Dixon is known for the stirring and intense quality of his 
preaching upon the practical questions of the day, and he has in 
this little volume heaped up a most terrible indictment of the 
Protestant churches in the city of New York for their failure to 
do their proper work and to hold their own in their community. 
It is by recognizing facts rather than ignoring them that true 
progress is accomplished, and it will be better for the churches 
if they take Mr. Dixon's statistics and arguments to heart with 
a view of profiting by them. 

President Geo. A. Gates, in the ^'Emgdom" 
It is a terrific ^arraignment of the Protestant churches of New 
York city for the way they have run away, geographically and 
practically, from the awful physical and moral and spiritual 
needs of the city. 

From the " New Church Messenger.'' 
This is not a Roman Catholic book, as its name would at first 
suggest, but is a very live little volume written by a Protestant 
clergyman, and arraigns all denominations of the Church in this 
City, including the Catholic. Mr. Dixon's style is vigorous and 
many of his utterances might make good aphorisms. "Institu- 



Press reviews. 7 

tions that were of use in the past will have no place in the his- 
tory of the future. They may have belonged to the history of 
the infancy of the race, but have no part in the story of the race's 
manhood." "The cry Back to the old paths, is the feeble rally- 
ing call of a reminiscent senility." "The Church must either 
lead or be led in this world movement of the race. We are now 
in the first years of the reign of the common people." "Uniform- 
ity gained by force does not mean unity. The belief that it does 
is the one tragic superstition of our history." But "The Failure 
of Protestantism" which it would be more appropriate to name 
"The Failure. of Churchism" is not all a criticism. It believes 
in the Christian religion, and describes the "religion of the fu- 
ture" which must be "progressive," "simple," "in harmony with 
reason," "luminous," with a "saving" and a "social" power, and 
"characterized by common sense." 

On the whole we greet "The Failure of Protestantism" with 
great pleasure. It is in, perhaps, rather a modest external form, 
but it is vigorous, purposeful, hopeful through its severest criti- 
cisms, and abounding in suggestive and helpful conceptions. If 
our readers should enjoy the perusal of this little volume half as 
much as we, it would well repay being purchased and read. 

From the Jamaica (West Indies) " Post." 
It is clever; it is manly and outspoken; and at times it is even 
eloquent and inspiriting. 

Mr. Dixon is a young man of strong convictions; and he has 
the courage of his convictions. The same fearless spirit which 
he displays at the Academy of Music,he exhibits in every page of 
this book. It matters not to him whether his words are palate- 
able to his friends and his brethren in the ministry, or whether 
they are calculated to drive them all mad with anger and cha- 
grin. Sufficient for him that they are true — or, rather, that he 
thinks they are true. At all costs the truth must be told. That 
is his creed, as it is also his practice. And very cleverly and 
epigrammatically does he somtimes state his facts. 



8 PBESS BEVIEWS, 

As an ardent Protestant, however, Mr. Dixon reserves his 
choicest vials of wrath for the Protestant denominations. He 
exposes and denounces mercilessly the tendency of all Protes- 
tant congretations to **move up-town" — to leave the squalid, 
crowded parts of the city, and to build churches only in "aristo- 
cratic" quarters. With an indigination worthy of one of the pro- 
phets of old he also holds up to scorn the custom that exists in so 
many congregations of appointing as office-bearers only such men 
as have long bank-accounts and occupy a good social position. 

Altogether, Mr. Dixon has produced a notable book; and it 
would be a good thing if every minister of religion (Protestant 
and Catholic) throughout the English-speaking world could 
obtain a copy of it and read it. Towards the close of the volume 
he puts in a powerful plea for a simpler creed — for less theology 
and more religion — for an adaptation, in short, of the Church's 
message and methods to the wants of the age. 



CONTENTS. 



1. The Fact of the Failure. 

2. Dismantled Churches and Deserted Thousands. 

3. Protestantism becoming a Bourgeois Aristocracy. 

4. The Church of Christ a Democracy. 

5. Sectarianism. 

6. Dead Theologies. 

7. The Success of the Salvation Army. 

8. The Apparent Success of the Episcopal Church. 

9. The STRENorrH of Roman Catholicism. 

10. The Decay of Romanism. 

11. Goody-Goodism and the Scourge of Christ. 

12. The Religion of the Future. 

APPENDIX. 
** What are the Churches Going to Do About It?" 



THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM 

In New York and its Causes. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Fact of the Failure. 

As a Protestant, I have said that Protestantism in New York 
is a failure. For this assertion, I have been bitterly assailed. 
The man who shows intellectual hospitality is always accursed 
by a class of self -constituted guardians of the faith — that faith, 
in particular, on which their own personal interests turn. They 
have damned me a^ a renegade and traitor for making this ag- 
gravating declaration. 

And yet facts are facts. Let us examine them. The assertion 
that I have made is the utterance of a sorrowful heart. It is 
based on six years of the hardest work and toughest experience 
of my life; experiences that have written themselves in grey lines 
in a young and over-hopeful head. 

Why cannot a Protestant, in love, speak the troth about that 
which most deeply concerns him, land try to tell the truth, the 
whole truth and nothing but the truth about it ? Has a preacher 
any more right to juggle with facts than any other man ? Is 
lying wrong only in the sinner ? Has the preacher the right to 
lie about his business, to put on a bold face and declare that he 
is enjoying a boom, when, as a matter of fact, he is a bankrupt 
and his property should be in the sheriff's hands ? If we would 
heed the squeak of the sectarian hand-organ, yes; if the preacher 



12 TEE FACT OF THE FAILVBK 

possesses oommon honesty, no. Before any evil can be remedied 
we must face the facts — all the facts. We must squarely face 
them without whine or apology. Ours is a century of light, 
knowledge, investigation, analysis, facts. Woe to that creed or 
cult that dares to flinch beneath the searchlight of the dawning 
century. It is dead already. 

THE SECTAEIAN TEMPEEAMENT. 

There is a certain kind of mind that refuses to face facts 
which are disagreeable. This, pre-eminently, is the sectarian 
temperament. Dr. Momerie says that when the subject of evo- 
lution first began seriously to disturb the peace of the Church 
of England, a dear old maid of much churchly zeal sought her 
rector in a great state of mind over the matter. She begged the 
doctor to fully explan to her the utter absurdity of such a doc- 
trine. The rector's explanations, however, were anything but 
reassuring. He told her that he must be perfectly frank with 
her and say that the preponderance of scientific evidence seemed 
now to indicate that God did use some such method in creating 
the world. She was horrified. She studied a moment and then 
tearfully exclaimed: "Oh, doctor, it is too terrible to think of 
our illustrious ancestors and those chattering monkeys — but, if 
you really think it is so, for heaven's sake do let's hush it up!" 

That policy may work for a while. But the facts will be 
known at last. And then ? 

THE POSITION AND POWEE OF NEW YOEK. 

What are the facts as to the condition and progress of Protes- 
tantism in New York to-day ? New York's position and power 
are such as to afford a supreme test of modern Protestant meth- 
ods. She is the centre of the commerce, society, art, literature, 
politics and religion of the Western World, and her port, in which 
float the flags of every nation, is the open gateway of two worlds. 
The feet of three million human beings press her pavements daily 
in the conflict of modern life. Here is the scorching furnace in 



THE FACT OF TEE FAILURE. 13 

which are being tried by fire the faiths, the hopes, the dreams, 
the memories, of that humanity that shall rule the earth in the 
twentieth century. The wealth, the power, the position of such 
a city are undisputed. New York City, in mere volume of popu- 
lation, is the equal of three of our great states. There is a single 
family on Fifth Avenue, whose wealth is greater than the entire 
valuation of the State of North Carolina with its 1,600,000 in- 
habitaoits and 48,580 square miles of land. Such a city sums up, 
in its fevered life, the conflict of the race in embryo. As the cen- 
tre of the activities of humanity, its history is of supreme im- 
portance. In the sweep of that resistless progress before us will 
our pet faiths, fad an<J manners survive ? In the roar of this 
modern Babylon is religion increasing its hold on man ? It is 
doubtful. 

HOLDING OUR OWN. 

Is Protestantism growing stronger here ? The question is ab- 
surd to any man who lives in New York. 

Is Protestantism even holding its own ? Some contend that 
it is. Nothing could be more absurd. Progress or retrogression 
are the inexorable laws of life. Nothing that lives can merely 
hold its own. It must increase or decrease its powers of vitality. 
A man must either grow better or grow worse, wiser or more 
stupid, stronger or weaker. To stop is to die. New York City is 
one of the most godless, if not the most godless city in America. 
The growth of churches and the growth of population shows that 
the vitality of Protestantism has declined steadily during the 
last forty years. 

The following table shows the apparent gain in church mem- 
bership during the last decade in leading Protestant Churches. 

1885. 1887. 1891. 1892 

Methodist.... 12,588 12,981 13,280 14,140 Net increase 1552 

Baptist...... 13,669 13,687 13,952 14,644 Net increase 975 

Presbyterian..20,308 23,016 23,299 24,737 Net increase 4429 

Lutheran 14,000 14,000 13,375 Net decrease 625 



14 THE FACT OF THE FAILURE, 

How long will it take these churches to take the world at this 
rate? Are they holding their own? 

The Baptists increased 975 during the seven years 1885 to 
1892. The normal birth-rate of their membership 13,669, should 
have given an increase by birth of more than 3,500 during this 
period; their accessions from other Baptist churches more than 
balancing their death-rate. The Baptists, therefore, managed 
to hold about one-fourth of the children born into their homes. 
Is this * 'holding our own"? 

The Methodists increased 1,552 during these seven years. The 
birth-rate should give the Methodists in this time about 3,521. 
So our Methodist friends, with their matchless zeal, managed to 
hold nearly one-half the children born in their homes. Is this 
"holding our own" ? 

The Presbyterians increased 4,429 during these seven years. 
Their normal birth-rate should have given them an increase of 
5,684. So our Presbyterian friends, with their enormous wealth 
and preitige, peculiar to New York City, massed in their 81 
churches, managed to hold about two-thirds of the children born 
in their homes. Is this * 'holding our own" ? 

The Lutherans, with 14,000 members in 1885, show an actual 
decrease in roll of 625. Their birth-rate should have given them 
3,920 increase. They have not only failed to hold their ow^n chil- 
dren but have lost 625 of the older ones. Surely this is holding 
our own with a vengeance. 

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD ENEOLLED. 

But these figures do not tell all the pitiable story. Every one 
knows who knows anything about the history of New York 
churches that the rolls are not kept to-day as they were twenty 
or thirty years ago. Then church enrollment meant a pretty ac- 
curate summary of the members on the field; now some of our 
churches keep even the dead on their rolls, on the ground that 
their establishment extends over this world and the next! One 
of these mushroom records collapsed the other day by a fire, and 



THE FACT OF THE FAILURE, 15 

out of a roll of over 4,000 there could not be found 200 members! 
This is undoubtedly an extreme case, but it is to the point. 
There are actually fewer Baptists in New York to-day than there 
were twenty years ago; there are fewer Methodists than there 
were twenty years ago. 

CHTJBCHES AND POPULATION. 

While we have been thus holding our own with such remark- 
able vigor, what has the population of New York City beep 
doing? The statistics of the churches and the population teil 
the sad story. These records of churches and population mean 
all churches — Catholic and Protestant. 

1840—170 churches— 312,852 population— 1 to 1,840. 
1892—569 churches— 1,801,739 population— 1 to 3,166. 

Apparently we had 1 church to 1,840 people in the year 1840. 
In 1892 we had held our own to the extent of figuring out on 
paper 1 church to 3,166 people! I say figuring out on paper ad- 
visedly, for this record of churches is even more misleading than 
the record of members. In 1840 it was the policy of the Baptist 
churches, for example, to aim at the establishment only of vigor- 
ous self-supporting bodies, and, as a rule, the record of a church 
meant something. Now what are the facts? The Baptists re- 
port 51 churches in New York in 1894. I am personally acquaint- 
ed with the history and present condition of every one of these 
so-called churches. To my certain knowledge 24 of these 51 re- 
corded *' Churches" merely represent aspiration, not attainment. 
They are utterly insignificant in membership, position, property 
or influence in the community. Some of them are, in fact, mis- 
sion stations for reaching our foreign population, and many of 
them are not able to pay for heating and lighting, and sweeping 
out their places of worship. This incapacity has been long 
chronic in many cases. If the record of Protestant Churches 
were made on the principles that entered into the definition of a 
"church" in 1840, the statistics of 1892 would show we actually 



16 THE FACT OF THE FAILURE, 

have in New York to-day 1 church to about 6,000 inhabitants, as 
contrasted witJi 1 to 1840, forty-five years ago. Nor does all this 
tell the story of the actual condition of the people and the church- 
es in Nev^ York. Almost all our large and vigorous churches are 
jammed in the rich and sparsely settled districts of the city, 
where churches of any sort are least needed, while the dark 
teeming millions in the crowded districts are untouched by the 
remotest influence from church life. Broome Street Tabernacle 
is a mission station of the New York City Mission and Tract 
Society and is supported by that Society. It is the only Protes- 
tant Church in the midst of a population of over 60,000. There 
are districts in New York of 50,000 inhabitants in which there 
is not found a single church of any sort. It is a conservative es- 
timate that places the number of heathen in New York at 500,- 
000. 

WHEEE ARE THE MEN? 

The Federal Census of 1890 gives 135,000 Protestant commu- 
nicants in New York. Probably twenty-five per cent, or about 
33,000 of them are men. Out of a male population of 900,000, a 
little over three per cent, are Protestants. A vote that amounts 
to only three per cent, of a total poll is generally called scatter- 
ing, and need not be considered! Besides, these people entered 
as Protestants in the Census, do not all of them go to church. I 
have counted the people present at a regular afternoon preach- 
ing service on a beautiful day in the largest Presbyterian church 
in the city, with a roll of 2,499 members and pews for 1,600 peo- 
ple — and there were just 425 people present! Probably, at the 
morning service, there were 850 present, but I greatly doubt it. 
In a prosperous, self-supporting Protestant church in New York, 
the congregation will generally average only forty per cent, of 
the church roll at the best service when the pastor is in his pul- 
pit. There are, therefore, never more than 16,000 men to be 
found in the 451 Protestant churches in New York on the fair- 
est day and under the very best conditions. The rest of the people 



THE FACT OF THE FAILURE. 17 

are women and children. Where are the 900,000 men of New York 
on Sunday ? They may be in the parks, they may be at Coney 
Island, they may lounge in the clubs or go a-fishing; but, wher- 
ever they are, they are rarely found crowding Protestanft church- 
es. There are 500 clubs and over 1,000 lodges in New York, and 
not a woman in them! Masonry alone counts 20,000 stalwart 
men in New York City. 

THE MILLIONS INVESTED. 

Let us look at it from another point of view — that of the in- 
vested capital and results. Methodism, undoubtedly, forms the 
most aggressive wing of Protestantism to-day in the New World. 
Last year the New York Conference West (including several 
strong suburban churches) reported 17,309 members in 86 church- 
es. They gave to their work |550,000, and on an invested capi- 
tal of 14,100,000 they gained net 241 members! Their birth-rate 
should have given them 692 new members, could they only suc- 
ceed in holding their children. Think of it! An army of 17,309 sol- 
diers massed in 86 divisions, spend $550,000 in a working capital 
on $4,100,000 investment and manage to save to their faith one- 
third of their own children. And they are supposed to be in a 
field campaign conquering the world. If an ordinary business 
man at the end of the year were confronted with such results in 
the conduct of his trade — he would do one of two things — speed- 
ily change his methods, or call in the sherifE and sell out the 
whole thing as junk! The Baptists in the Southern New York 
Association, including several powerful suburban churches, re- 
ported in 1894, 18,604 members. During the four years from 
1891 to 1894 they gave on an average $500,000 annually, an ag- 
gregate of $2,000,000 in these four years. They have 68 church- 
es and their property in worth $4,000,000. From '91 to '94 they 
spent $2,000,000 in a working capital on ^$4,000,000 invested and 
managed to gain 216 members annually. Their birth rate was 
744 annually. How long will it take the Baptists at this rate to 
conquer the world ? 



18 THE FACT OF THE FAILURE. 

The Presbyterians in New York give annually at least $1,000,- 
000. Their property is worth over $8,000,000 and they average 
a gain of 632 annually. Is this all? No! American Presbyte- 
rianism with its enormous wealth and established power has 
done one more thing for the cause of Christianity in New York — 
expelled from the pulpit Prof. Charles A. Briggs, the foremost 
scholar of the Church of Christ in the New World. Truly this 
is progress. 

DESEBTS OF EMPTY PEWS. 

What is the character of the average attendance on Protest- 
ant church services in New York ? The plain fact is Protestant- 
ism has little hold on the manhood of New York. The men have 
deserted the churches and built clubs and secret societies in their 
stead. The attendance on the average smaller churches that 
cannot command preachers of great personal powers is simply 
beneath contempt. I shall never forget my first experience in a 
great city church. I was fresh from the far-off South, full of 
fire and zeal. I knew the church building had a capicity of 1,- 
500 and that they had 1,600 members. My own little village 
church barely held 400. I dreamed of a sea of eager living faces. 
I trusted to the inspiration of the hour to give me my best 
thought. The eventful morning of my life came. Shall I ever 
forget it? I sat down shivering in the pulpit,the blood in my veins 
fairly frozen at the sight before me — n desert of empty benches 
with just 80 human beings scattered among them. I stumbled 
through the service somehow. I tried to preach but I could not. 
The sight of that silent and solemn mausoleum, and those prim 
elderly women and a few fidgety old men looking up at me from 
their lonely perches took all the soul out of me. I made the most 
stupid failure of my life. It makes me shiver to think of that 
December morning now. This is no exceptional case. It has 
long been the rule in the average Protestant church in lower New 
York. Dr. Shauffler, the veteran mission worker of the city 
made, from the platform of Chickerin^ Hall some time ago, the 



THE FACT OF THE FAILURE. 19 

following statement: "I made the rounds some time ago on a 
beautiful Sunday morning in some of these churches, and some 
of them fairly large — ^and this was the count: in four churches 
there was one with 126 people, another 35, another 25, and anoth- 
er 110. If anybody tells you that he estimates that in his church 
there are 500 in the congregation you can cut him down 50 per 
cent, and you will be about right. The next Sunday was a beau- 
tiful Sunday and I went forth once more to count the people, and 
I found them. In 4 churches — there were 55 in one, 45, 28, and 
in another 26, and a bright Sunday morning it was too." 

A man said to another, in New York, one day: "How do you 
account for the small attendance on the Protestant churches?" 

"I can't account for it at all," replied his friend. **I went to 
one of them the other night myself, and for the life of me I 
couldn't make out w^hat under heaven brought as many people 
there as I saw. It's too much for me, I can't understand it." 

SACEED EEFEIGEEATOES. 

Not only is the average service of the average Protestant 
church, as at present conducted in New York, inexpressibly dull, 
but the religious fibre of the stronger ones is unquestionably 
tough. It is the almost universal experience of young people 
who come into New York from the country that they are chilled 
to the marrow of their bones by their first contact with our 
church life. They rarely recover their spiritual equilibrium after 
this first disillusion. 

They desert the churches of their childhood, and join the great 
church outside of the Church that grows faster with each suc- 
ceeding generation. The plain truth is, fashion and pride and 
wealth, and social caste, for their own sake, dominate our 
strongest churches. The best attended of these great churches 
are crowded simply by the social attraction of the wealthy fami- 
lies who rule them. To keep out the herd of vulgar, social aspi- 
rants who wish to scrape acquaintance by jostling the children 
of the rich, some of these churches have separate Sunday-schools 



20 THE FACT OF THE FAILURE. 

for the rich and the poor. Really we cannot blame them in view 
of the evident motive of this mob. And yet, is this Christianity? 
A pastor was recently driven out of a fashionable church for 
two reasons. First, they said he was not an orator. Second, 
they said he gave too much time to the poor! *'Has the Messiah 
come, or shall we look for another?" What answer could these 
people give to the Disciples of John, if they should come to-day 
seeking the sign of their discipleship of Jesus ? 

THE PKOPHETS DEAD. 

New York is the largest graveyard of Protestant preachers in 
America. Toward the dazzling light of its metropolitan life they 
flock from the smaller cities. Against its adamantine surface 
they dash their brains out like bewildered birds around a light- 
house. New York kills more preachers than any city in Ameri- 
ca. They start off well and work well for a few months, per- 
haps a year or so, and then they quietly die. They may still fill 
their pulpits and deceive the census taker and be rated among 
the living. But God knows they are dead, and man has ceased 
to care one way or the other. A prophetic, authoritative minis- 
try has all but ceased to exist in New York. 

THE SMUG NEW YOEKEB. 

The pew dominates the pulpit. Such is the age of the Scribe 
and Pharisee. A prophet cannot grow under such a blight. The 
noblest prophetic instincts of the Protestant ministry have been 
strangled. They wear collars. They choke. When you pass the 
door you do not hear the clear ring of a prophet's voice. You 
merely hear a wheeze. 

Rural enthusiasms are soon crushed beneath /the cold sarcasm 
of self-satisfied New Yorkism in the pews. Of all the forces I 
have ever encountered, this is the most stupefying. I know what 
the ignorance of the South is — it is my own fair, native land. 
I have lived in Boston, and know what the sullen traditionalism 
of New England means, with its bulldog tenacity. I have travel- 



THE FACT OF THE FAILUHE. 21 

led West, and measured the boundless cheek of the typical West- 
erner, but for downright stupidity, for smug self-satisfaction, 
for hopeless incapacity in the world of morals and spirituality, I 
have encountered nothing on this earth that compares to the 
average half-well-to-do New Yorker, He has little brains, no 
culture — scarcely the rudiments of coonmon sense — but being a 
New Yorker, he assumes everything! Of this big world outside 
the Bowery, Fifth Avenue, Coney Island and Central Park, he 
knows nothing, for he neither reads nor travels; and yet, without 
a moment's hesitation he sits in instant judgment upon the world 
movements of human thought and society. These are the men 
who are ruling the Protestant churches in New York — the big 
little men who hold the offices and dictate its methods and 
'politics. 

A few years ago a country Congressman in Washington was 
holding a most dignified conversation with one of his constitu- 
ents. While talking, a careworn elderly looking man approached 
and asked the Congressman for a few moments of his valuable 
time. With evident annoyance he stepped aside. Upon return- 
ing he said with lofty scorn to his constituent: *'What do you 
suppose that old fool is worrying the life out of me about? He 
wants me to use my influence to induce Congress to stretch a 
wire from Washington to Baltimore so that one fool over there 
can talk forty miles to a fool here!" And with infinite scorn this 
great man gazed after the retreating figure of Morse, the invent- 
or of the telegraph. Such is the chronic attitude of the New 
York Protestant pew toward the prophet who dares to speak a 
real message. And so a dead past rules us in the living present. 

SICK MEN AND SICK SOULS. 

When George Washington was stricken with pneumonia, his 
secretary,Tobias Lear,says that the overseer was summoned, who 
took a half -pint of blood from him. Mixtures of molasses, vin- 
egar and butter were given, but to no effect. Gargles of sage-tea 
and bandages of flannel about his throat proved equally useless. 



22 THE FACT OF IHE FAILUBK 

A physician arrived, bled ihim again, and ordered the same gar- 
gle, which "produced great distress and suffocation." 

Another physician arrived and bled him again, administering 
drugs which also seemed still more to weaken the patient. Find- 
ing that the general was rapidly sinking, and feeling that the 
country would hold them responsible for the care of his life, the 
alarmed physicians consulted anxiously, land, as a last resort, 
bled him once more. Washington, feeling himself to be dying, 
sent for his will, gave directions concerning his papers, military 
records and the disposal of his body, and then prepared himself 
for death with the calmness of a stoic. "The physicians were 
absorbed in grief." 

The poorest tramp who falls in an almhouse to-day has better 
attention. He commands the results of the knowledge of centu- 
ries. But for the sick in soul to-day, we insist on the same meth- 
ods used by our forefathers hundreds of years ago. And we 
wonder why we fail. And in our bewilderment we become 
apostles of the gospel of geography. When we fail, we move 
up-town. When the town moves further up, we move again. 
Our apologists say that the people have moved. And yet we 
look to the east, to the west, to the north and to the south, and 
as far as the eye can reach rolls the sea of human life. 

When the coroner brings in the true verdict on these dead 
churches, it will be this: "Drowned in an ocean of humanity, 
hunting for men." 

Protestantism counts less thaji 35,000 men in 1,800,000 popula- 
tion in New York. Add to this 100,000 women and you have the 
total results of a century of toil and struggle and sacrifice. 

Our invested capital is over $160,000,000; our annual gifts of 
money aggregate over $4,000,000 and we cannot hold the children 
born in our homes. Is this success or failure? 



CHAPTER II. 

Dismantled Churches and Deserted Thousands. 

The supreme test of any religion is not so much its number of 
adherents and temples as its power to save the people. Its claims 
of authority are a hollow mocking upon their very face if made 
amid squalor and hunger, rags and pauperism, crime and despair. 
Confronted by this supreme crisis in New York, Protestantism 
has taken to its heels and fled up-town. One by one every in- 
fluenitial church in the once prosperous down-town communities 
has given up the struggle and become apostles of the gospel of 
geography. As the mob follow them they move again, until they 
find breathing space at last amid the vacant lots, scattered pala- 
ces and browsing goats of the upper West Side. One of the his- 
toric churches of the Protestant denomination that stood near 
the Academy of Music has been demolished and a business build- 
ing erected in its stead. And another that stood opposite has 
just been sold and converted into a beer garden. One of the 
largest and strongest churches of the Presbyterian denomina- 
tion on Fourteenth Street has sold their church edifice and mov- 
ed up-town. An historic church of another denomination, with 
a pastor whose name has been historic for twenty years, is now 
on the market, and its trustees ask $1,000,000 for the lot. Where 
the vacant church on Fourteenth Street stands, to-day surges 
such a tide of humanity as never surged before it since the day 
its foundation stone was laid. People gone! They have not 
gone; they have come. They have come in such numbers and 
with such problems — such questions, that churches have taken 
fright and fled before this flood, this avalanche, that thre'atens 
to engulf weakness and humbug Christianity! 

The life of the down-town masses of the city is the strategetic 
point in the battle of Christianity with the modern world. 



24 DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC, 

Here is the supreme test of the genuineness of our discipleship 
of Christ: 

It is the disposition and power to save the lost and weak and 
helpless. John sent from prison to Christ to know in his condi- 
tion of helplessness whether He were the Christ or they should 
expect another. Poor disheartened prophet! Pioneer and fore- 
runner he had been in the early days, crying, "Prepare the way," 
and now overwhelmed with difficulties, imprisoned and deserted, 
his life haaiging on the whim of a harlot, he sent to Christ, if He 
were the Messiah, to give him some sign that he might know 
that his hope and preaching had not been in vain. 

What was the answer of Jesus Christ? He did not say: *'Go 
back to John and tell him of the miracles that accompanied my 
entrance into the world; that the star stood over the manger in 
Bethlehem, and men from far Eastern worlds saw the super- 
natural manifestation and moved across the deserts that they 
might stand over the cradle and see the coming Saviour; that the 
angels came down from Gk)d and said to the shepherds on the 
hill on the night of my birth, *Peace on earth, good- will to men.' " 
He sent back this message to John: "Go, tell him that you have 
seen and heard: that the lame walk, the blind see, the lepers are 
cleansed, the dead are raised," that he may know the kingdom 
is come — climax of all, "that the Gospel is preached to the poor, 
to the outcast world; He will know then." 

OUT OF THE THE DITCH. 

I stand to-day before the Church of Jesus Christ in this com- 
munity, and in every modern community, and say it must an- 
swer that supreme test. It is useless to prate about the inspira- 
tion of the Bible, or this or that doctrine, if, in the vital strug- 
gle, in the hand-to-hand conflict with sin and hell, there is failure 
and retreat and defeat. The supreme test of Christianity is 
found in its power to reach our civilization and save it; reach our 
life and bless it, lift it from the ditch and plant it on the heights. 
If Christianity cannot answer that supreme test, it has failed in 



DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC. 25 

the one hour of its sapreme trial. I come to-day before the 
Church of Christ in New York and ask that solemn test. Does 
the true church of Christ exist in New York to-day? It is no 
use to say: "See our sculptured poems in marble and glittering 
spires. See our magnificent frescoes, our beautiful pews." 
The one test in the genuineness of the discipleship of Christ is: 
Have you reached; are you saving the lost and lapsed world? 
Have the poor the Gospel preached to them? Do the lame walk? 
Are the blind being made to see? If not, then you have failed; 
then you are failing to-day. 

THICKEST OF THE FIGHT. 

Here around you surge the needy millions who are to be saved 
if this world is saved, because here the hosts of hell are mar- 
shaled, here the lost are marshaled, and Jesus said the Son of 
Man came to seek and save not the righteous, but that which 
was lost. 

Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was like unto that of the 
lost sheep; to the woman who sought diligently the one coin lost; 
like the feast spread and the seats were vacant, and He said to 
the manager of the feast, "Go out into the highways and hedges 
and compel them to come in. Bring in the poor and lame, and 
halt and blind, that the table shall be filled." The church that 
bundles up its bag and baggage and flees before this tide of hu- 
manity gives up the struggle, has turned its back on the commis- 
sion of Jesus Christ and on the Saviour who stood beside that 
dark multitude and wept as He looked at them, scattered as 
sheep without a shepherd. 

NEW TOKK AND LONDON. 

Around the doors of the down-town churches surge this class 
of people of which Jesus spoke in His test to John. 

The poor are here — ^poor in body in this world's goods; the 
poor in mind, and, above all, the poor in soul — ^poor in life. New 
York City is the most crowded city of the civilized world. Lon- 



26 DISMANTLED CHURCHES^IETC, 

don has seven people to a house; New York sixteen. There is 
no crowded district of all the civilized world in which property is 
so packed and so intensified, with all its hideous aspects and in 
so wide an area as in this metropolitan city of the New World, 
with its new hope and new life. Here, around the doors of your 
down-town church, you find the thousands of laboring people 
who sweat out their lives. Needlewomen who sew into the 
coats you wear their hearts' blood, until you can feel the throb 
of aching nerve in every seam. 

The poor are around this down-town church, crowded in dark 
and dingy tenements, tier piled on tier, until it seems as if the 
filthy foundations of the buildings would groan at the burden of 
woe they bear. 

JACOB EHS'S BEPORT. 

Here are the districts where Mr. Riis found twelve men and 
women in one room thirteen feet square. It is in these districts 
that they sleep at five cents a spot, on the floor, on a table or 
sheJf — anywhere they can find a place. It is in this district that 
children swarm like so many vermin. Mr. Riis found in two 
buildings 136 children in two dark and dingy holes. Death stalks 
through these crowded alleys with his scythe always swinging. 
From a thousand doors in summer there flutter each week the 
white ribbons which tell of broken hearts and homes. 

Here are found the blind. You can find them in this district 
staggering from those saloons whose doors swing on their gilded 
hinges every day in the year. 

In no district of the city is the curse of the saloon, with its 
beautiful surroundings, its music and companionship, and all 
that degrades — in no district is its curse so terrible as in these 
districts to which God has called the down-town church to min- 
ister. Here are found the lame. The foreign world is crowded 
here, groping in its blind way after life, not able to read the sign- 
boards that might point to life, the easy victim of every darkened 
soul that seeks to destroy. In a single district of this city there 



DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC. 27 

are 111,000 people crowded, nearly every one of whom are foreign- 
ers, blind in finding the way of life. 

A STEEN TEIBUNAIi. 

Think you that with them will perish the evil they have 
wrought? No; in that district, with 111,000 crowded souls, there 
are 23,000 children. I think of the hosts that press the pave- 
ments of Cherry Hill, and of the few who are born to the world 
on the heights of fashion, and I look into the faces of those dirty 
urchins, stained with mud, and their hearts stained with crime, 
and it seems to me that I can hear the step of a coming army 
whose breathings are not for the life of the nation or of the 
Church. 

I hear the coming tread of a generation of men who not only 
know not the name of Jesus Christ, but who do not even know 
the name of the government in which they were born; who do 
not know the flag under which they are supposed to march as 
citizens, who one day may stand before a staggering State and 
challenge it to make good its own life before the stern tribunal 
of the guillotine, the dagger, the torch and the dynamite bomb! 
Those children growing up in those districts without Christ or 
the knowledge of truth, or the influence of civilization, cannot be 
left alone with impunity. If you do not love them they will make 
you look after them to save your own life, bye and bye. 

Lepers there are around the doors of this church. The out- 
casts of society, the fallen women congregated in these districts, 
whose touch is pollution, the criminals pouring forth in renewed 
streams, the evil influences of an evil life. The dead are here, 
men dead to hope, dead to life, to civihzation, to honor, to all the 
influences that make life worth living for you and me. 

BLACK-WHEELED GUNS. 

m 

Those marching hosts of thousands of children in those dis- 
tricts who do not know the name of Christ, will have a settle- 
ment with you and the State in the future. 



28 mSMANTLIlD CBURGSE8, MTC. 

In yoiir midst to-day, there is a population of 50,000, whose 
only restraint from torch and knife and bomb, is the fact that in 
your armories there stand black- wheeled guns that can be drawn 
into the streets and sweep them with grape and canister. The 
only power to-day^that stands to guard your life, is that power 
which is itself the abrogation of civilization and the inaugura- 
tion of the Reign of Terror and Death. 

Think you thesb people can be left to work out their own sal- 
vation? The time will come in the life of the men who tear up 
their churches and move them to the grand boulevards of the 
north, when a heavy hand may knock at their barred doors and 
ask of them the reason for their existence. 

MOAN OF THE GEEAT SEA. 

Here lie the lapsed thousands with their awful needs. Here 
rolls that dark sejf of human w^ant and woe across which Jesus 
walked, and with voice of love cried, *'Peace be still." And shall 
they who bear the name of Jesus, flee before that moan of mis- 
ery that breaks to-day on the shores of our city? The church 
that deserts does it at the peril of its life. 

If the gospel fails to reach and save these people, to whom 
shall they go? *'Master, thou hast the word of eternal life; to 
w^hom can we go?" Their daily lot is a poverty that means hun- 
ger and cold, and nakedness and rags. It is this shadow that 
falls across the streets of the city as nowhere else on the earth 
to-day. There are poor people in the country, but they are mil- 
lionaires in all that constitutes life as compared with the poor 
of the city. 

It is a continuous amazement to me that people should leave 
the country and crowd into the city; the city which Carlyle 
graphically described, "The great foul city, rattling, crawling, 
smoking, stinking, a ghastly heap of fermented brickwork, pour- 
ing out poison at every pore." And yet they come in tens, in hun- 
dreds, in thousands, in tens of thousands every year, crowding 
the already crowded trades, crowding the already crowded dens 



DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC 29 

in which human beings whelp and stable like beasts. They leave 
clear skies. They leave pure air. They leave kindly friends, 
sympathetic neighbors. They leave earth for hell, and still they 
come. Such poverty in the city means the loss of a home. There 
is no home life among the poor of the great city. The word 
home is stricken from the language of man. Th<? poor live in a 
den. They exist in a tenement, and the tenement life, with its 
attendant horrors, is constantly on the increase in our great 
cities. In New York City it has swallowed up all the other life 
practically. The tenement has, like a huge moiister, devoured 
the home. 

It may be said that New York City lives in the tenements; in 
the second and third-class tenements. One million three hun- 
dred thousand people in this city exist in second and third-class 
tenements. This constitutes the people. The landlords are an 
insignificant faction. People who live in separate Jiouses are not 
of the people; they are the exception. To every so-called house 
in the City of New Y'ork there is an average of sixteen dwellers. 
London averages seven. In what is known as the tenement 
house district there are no fewer than 276,000, families packed 
together. In this quarter it goes without saying that the death- 
rate reaches its most horrible height, and public morality touches 
a depth of degradation before which philanthropists stand 
aghast. Such poverty is the open door to theft because the wages 
are so low that the temptation to wrongdoing is well-nigh re- 
sistless. How hundreds and thousands of people in the cities, 
with their wages, can keep from stealing is a miracle. A man 
is certainly entitled to existence. He is entitled to enough 
clothes to keep him from freezing. He is entitled to a house to 
cover his head, and he has a right to work.^ But these things 
are denied hundreds and thousands of people to-day in the city. 
A woman was discovered the other day who had starved to 
death. Men commit crime daily that they may get the comforts 
of a penitentiary, the luxury of a stay on Blackwell's Island. 
The children born are doomed before their birth, a*d the genera- 



30 DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC. 

tion that rises has less of hope than the generation that dies. 
Our statisticians tell us that 20,000 children work in the great 
city of New York; but those who know the facts tell us that in 
the great city of New York alone there are 100,000 little pinched 
forms that work for their daily bread and are glad to get work 
— work at the period when children must grow or die. Their lit- 
tle faces are pinched and shriveled and wrinkled until they are 
an army of little men and women. What wonderful creatures 
many of them are ! They never complain — they take it as a mat- 
ter of course. 

There are 60,000 of these little waifs drifting on the black 
waters of this city's life, and every city has its proportion. Is it 
any wonder that we have tramps and idlers, and that the gang 
of toughs is soon developed, and that they graduate into the 
hardened criminal, desperado, highwayman and assassin? 

PANTS SEVEN CENTS A PATB. 

Woman is the mother of civilization as well as the mother of 
man. Womanhood is the index to life. If it be degraded, life is 
degraded. If i% is steeped in sullen despair, life will show its 
fruits. If it be hard, life will be hard. If the life of woman leads 
to hell, hell is nigh to humanity. Two hundred o^nd fifty thous- 
and women work at hard tasks outside of domestic service in 
this city. Three hundred and forty-three trades are open to 
women, the census-taker tells us. They are, as a matter of fact, 
simply subdivisions caused by the divisions of labor. Added to 
this is the additional horror of unpaid labor. There is not a 
single one of these lower trades in which women work in which 
they are actually paid a just return for their labor. Because 
they are women, they are made to do the work which men could 
not do better, for from one-third to one-half the remuneration 
men would receive. 

Needlewomen make pants for 7 cents a pair, and use their own 
machines, find their own thread. They make shirts for 35 cents 
a dozen, and find their awn thread and machines. The^ make 



DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC. 31 

gingham waists for boys at 2% cents each, and it is impossible 
to make more than a dozen in 14 hours at a sewing-machine. 
And 14 hours at a sewing-machine, with a woman's hands and 
a woman's nerves, means that life is being ground out at a pace 
that makes the thing little short of murder. Cloakmakers can 
earn but 60 to 70 cents a day. We find 16 hours of toil, unre- 
lieved by a single gleam of light or hope or cheer, and the net re- 
sults of this concentrated despair and misery is $3.50 a week. 
And half of this is taken to pay for the den in which the work is 
done. Two families live in single rooms. Twelve people are 
found sometimes in a room 13 feet square. 

Many of the women who work in this underworld of horror 
are dying to hope, and when woman, with her ceaseless passion 
of life, her undying love, with her quenchless heroism, ceases to 
hope, it is time for your preacher, your politician, your philoso- 
pher, to hasten to find the cause. 

NO USE FOE SOULS. 

One of this army of a quarter of a million women recently said 
to Mrs. Campbell: 

"I don't see how anybody can much longer keep soul and 
body together." 

"We don't," said one of the other women, turning suddenly. 
*T got rid of my soul long ago, such as it was. Who's got time 
to think about souls, grinding away here fourteen hours a day, 
to turn out contract goods? Tain't souls that count. It's bodies 
that can be driven and half starved, and driven still, till they 
drop in their tracks. I would try the river if I was not driving 
to pay a doctor's bill for my three that went with the fever. Be- 
fore that I was driving to put food into their mouths. I never 
owed a cent to no man. I have been honest, and paid as I went, 
and done a good turn when I could. Had I chosen the other 
thing while I had a pretty face of my own, I would have had 
ease and comfort, and a quick death. The river's the best place 



32 DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC. 

I'm thinking, for them that wants ease. Such a life as this is 
not living.'* 

"She don't mean it," the first speaker said, apologetically, 
*'she knows there are better times ahead." 

"Yes, the kind you will find in the next room. Take a look in 
there, and then tell me what we are going to do." 

In the next room was found a pantaloon maker, huddled in an 
old shawl, finishing the last of a dozen, which, when taken back, 
would give her money for fire and food. She had been ill for 
three days. The bed was an old mattress on a dry goods box 
in the corner, and save for the chair on which she sat and the 
stove, the room was empty. 

SIXTY THOUSAND HOMELESS. 

Do not believe that these are exceptional cases. They are 
typical specimens from the army of this dark underworld. There 
are 50,000 homeless men and women in the city of New York 
alone, an army of 50,000 that do not know where they will lay 
their heads to night. The other day a man in a fit of insanity 
murdered his wife and three children. How do we know it was 
insanity? They say he became a maniac. And yet the poet 
tells us of how the old hero, Virginius, could slay his child rather 
than see her dishonored. Is it not possible, in view of these fre- 
quent horrors, they have been prompted not by insanity, but by 
the despair of love, by the father and mother that stood on the 
brimk and peered over the awful abyss, and preferred to kill their 
own, rather than to deliver them to the hell they saw open be- 
fore them? 

Such poverty is necessarily the mother of despair — despair 
grim and sullen and ^upefying. The man who fights with hun- 
ger becomes an animal. Is it not better to die a man than to die 
a brute? Can these desperate people reason? Suicide becomes 
a luxury. The death of a child under such conditions is a joy, 
not a sorrow. They are gathered to the potter's field, but they 
rest. They are crowded one on top of the other in the bi^, black 



DISMANTLED CHURCHES, ETC, 33 

trenches, bat they will not be roused in the gray twilight of the 
morning to dull, ceaseless toil. Their little bodies molder to- 
gether in the grave, but their little stomachs do not cry for bread, 
and for meat and for drink. Their little faces do not grow pinch- 
ed and worn any longer. There are some things worse than 
death. There are some things worse than the potter's field — it 
is the living potter's field, the living death. 

THE SUBMEEGED SIXTH. 

In 1890 in New York City, there were 36,679 deaths: 7,059 died 
in the hospitals, insane asylums and work-houses. That is to 
say, more than one person in every six who died in this great 
city died in a public institution, and nearly 4,000 of those who 
thus died were thrown in the potter's field for burial. Talk about 
your "submerged tenth"! This is the "submerged sixth"! In 
1894 over 5,000 people were buried in the potter's field, and of a 
total death-roll of 40,000, over 10,000 died in hospitals,jails, alms- 
houses, asylums and workhouses! A submerged fourth! 

It is no use to preach hell any more to the poor people of New 
York. They hope to better their condition in the next world, 
whether they go up or down. Mrs. Helen Campbell, who has 
spent her life among the poor of New York, says : 

"We pack the poor away in tenements crowded and foul be- 
yond anything known even to London, whose bitter cry is less 
yours than ours. And we have taken excellent care that no foot 
of ground shall remain, that means breathing space or free sport 
to a child, or any green growing thing. Grass pushes its way 
here and there, but for this army of weary workers it is only 
something they may lie under, never upon. 

"There is no pause in the march. As one and another drops 
out the gap fills instantly, every alley and byway holding unend- 
ing substitutes. It is not labor that profiteth, for body and soul 
are alike starved. It is labor in its basest and most degrading 
form — labor that is a curse and never a blessing, as true work 
may be and is. It blinds the eyes; it steals away joy; it blunti 



34 DI8MAKTLED CEUBCHES, ETC. 

all power, whether of hope or faith; it wrecks the body and it 
starves the soul; it is waste and only waste. Nor can it below 
ground or above hold fructifying power for any human soul. It 
is as student, not as professional philanthropist, that I write, 
and the years that have brought experience, have also brought 
a conviction sharpened by every fresh series of facts, that no 
words, no matter what power of fervor may lie behind, can make 
plain the sorrow of the poor." 

How has Protestantism in New York answered this awful 
cry of the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dead? By deserting 
their Oelds one by one, to build more palatial establishments in 
the favored spots among the houses of the rich! Is this success 
or failure? 



CHAPTER III. 

Protestantism Becoming a Bourgeois Aristocracy. 

The masses of the people in New York are not in touch with 
Protestant church life. This is stating the case in its mildest 
aspect. It would be nearer the whole truth to say that the mass- 
es of the people are either alienated or hostile to our present 
regime of Protestantism. We have already seen by the study of 
church attendance, church membership and church census under 
the National Grovernment that the Protestant churches cut an 
insignificant figure in the manhood life of New York. 

This alienation and hostility are not based on antagonism to 
the religion of Jesus Christ. A crowd of workingmen in New 
York have within the past decade been known to cheer the name 
of Jesus, and hiss the name of the church almost in the same 
moment. The opposition to the church is because of its present 
constitution 4ind ideal. The Protestant churches in New York 
to-day, as a rule, are composed too exclusively of the rich and 
the well to-do. A man shabbily dressed, without credentials, 
would be rejected as an applicant for membership, whatever 
might be his profession or religious experience, in the best self- 
supporting establishments. The question of membership is usu- 
ally settled by an investigation conducted by a committee whose 
business it is to investigate the man's business, his standing, his 
motives, his prospects in this world, and his hopes for the next. 
This is done under the idea that only thus can the Church of 
God be protected from a mob of imposters. And yet the rush 
has not begun so far as anybody in the last century has observed. 
This committee is usually composed of the most bigoted men 
available, and under its withering influence people are being con- 
stantly driven from the doors and beyond the reach of onv 



3G A BOURGEOIS ARISTOCBAGY. 

churches. The ideal aimed at is a high-toned social club, that 
shall support itself in handsome style for the benefit of its con- 
stituent members and their successors, chosen with due care. 
The tendency of the church is, therefore, steadily and persist- 
ently toward the creation and maintenance of a bourgeois aris- 
tocracy. This is one of the chief causes of the failure of Pro- 
testantism in New York. 

THE BEIGN OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. 

The progress of the world is steadily and rapidly toward de- 
mocracy. To-day the common people rule the world. Emper- 
ors, kings, presidents and elective representatives hold the offi- 
ces, but the common people really rule already. The time will 
soon be upon the world when they will rule in form as well as in 
fact. Empires are to-day but the dungheaps out of which re- 
publics grow. The French empire was the prelude of the re- 
public. The empire of Brazil was a fiction long before it toppled 
at the breath of an obscure army officer. It is doubtful if Ger- 
many sees a successor to William II. The monarchy in England 
is purely a popular fiction perpetuated by the historical instincts 
of the English people. The Queen of England has far less power 
than the President of the United States; her duties are purely 
ceremonial. The time was in our history when kings and princes 
filled the pages of human history. Now, the historian writes the 
record of the life of the common people, elese it is not considered 
a history. The eyes of the world are on the masses. For them 
the scientist toils to make the forces of nature their servants. 
Art portrays to-day the common life of the race as its highest 
ideal. Literature once fawned at the feet of titled fools. No.w, 
the literature of the race is abont the common people, and it is 
addressed distinctly to them. Wealth even has felt this over- 
powering influence, is beginning to build its millions into popular 
colleges, circulating libraries,and public legacies and trusts. The 
millionaire who dies to-day, holding his millions as his own, is 



A JSOURGmlS ARISTOCRACY. 37 

openly hissed while he lives, and boldly and publicly cursed while 
he lies cold in his coffin. 

THE ETHICAL PUBPOSE OF HUMANITY. 

In short the ethical purpose of the humanity of the century is 
fixed upon the uplifting and ennobling of the masses. This is 
precisely the purpose of Christianity. It always has been, it 
always must be. It is the unfailing evidence of the presence of 
the true church of Jesus. Here only do we find the historic con- 
tinuity of Christianity unbroken. Where is the machine called 
the Church to-day, and what is it about? Is its supreme purpose 
the saving of this dark, vulgar mass of humanity? If so, it is 
the true Church of Christ. Otherwise we must seek the histori- 
cal continuity of Christianity outside the four walls of the insti- 
tution. In short, the church that does not reach the common 
people, whatever it is, cannot claim to be Christian. 

Christianity is not a creed, or a philosophy, or a scheme of 
ethics, or a theory about the universe. Christianity is Jesus 
Christ. It is founded upon His unique personality as the incar- 
nation of truth, the message of God to man through man. This 
being true, the Church of Jesus Christ that has the right to His 
name must be founded on His personality. Jesus Himself was 
of the common people. He was of lowly birth. He was the son 
of the carpenter. His childhood was passed in this humble home, 
with its lowly surroundings. He was bom poor, lived and died 
poor. The foxes had holes, the birds of the air nests, but He 
had not where to lay His head. The one title by which He loved 
to designate Himself was not the Son of God, but the Son of 
man. He mingled with the masses, taught among them, lived 
with them, lived for them, died for them. The Pharisaic and 
traditional teacher did not darken the home of the poor and out- 
cast, but the news passed from lip to lip that the great Galilean 
teacher had been seen in the humblest homes, and the accusa- 
tion was brought against Him that He ate with publicans and 
sinners. What a startling contrast is this figure of Jesus with 



88 A BOVRGJEIOIS ARISTOGRACT. 

the proud Pharisee of Ms day, or with the prouder Pharisee of 
modern times. 

WHY JESUS WEPT. 

The mira<?Ies of Jesus were all miracles of mercy wrought for 
the benefit of this great, helpless mass. We are told t!hat He 
looked out upon the moving thousaaids as they thronged about 
Him, and His heart was moved with compassion. He was 
moved to tears as He saw them scattered as sheep without a 
shepherd. The first sermon that He preached was from this 
text: "The Lord hath anointed Me to preach the Grospel to the 
poor." He was popular with the masses of the people. They 
followed Him, they thronged Him, and His enemies did not dare 
molest Him during the three years of His ministry, because of 
their fear of the people. Again and again we are told that they 
did not lay hands on Him because they feared the people. I 
would like to know if anybody in New York would hesitate to 
lay hands on the average preacher for fear of the people? Upon 
the other hand, the people, as a rule, would gladly aid in his ar- 
rest and persecution. This is a startling fact, but it is a fact. 
The editors of certain papers in New York understand this only 
too well. Their choicest rascality is to slander and vilify Pro- 
testant ministers. The reason of it is, that the average Protes- 
tant minister finds no sympathy with the heart of the masses of 
the people. Hence they lie and slander, and vilify with the ut- 
most impunity. 

WHY THEY CEUCIFIED HIM. 

The life of Jesus was spent in the supreme work of minister- 
ing to theneeds and aspirations, the weaknesses and the sins of 
this dark crowd. As he passed through the country, men small 
of stature climbed into trees, that they might see Him and spealg 
a message to Him as He passed. The crowds thronged Him by 
the isea until it was necessary to push out into a boat that He 
might have room to speak to them. He stood by the gates of the 



A BOUHGEOIS ABISTOCBACr. 39 

city and healed the sick who were unable to find a physician. 
He died for them and because of thera. His final arraignment 
of the Pharisees was the cause of His execution. From His lips, 
gentle with a thousand messages of love, there poured that ter- 
rific arraignment of the Scribe and Pharisee as hypocrites and 
sons of hell. His words cut to the very marrow of the bone. 
They could not forgive Him. They determined to use all their 
power to destroy Him and they succeeded in accomplishing Hi3 
downfall. But Avhen He died the last vestige of the tradition- 
alism which separated the people from the God of the people, 
was destroyed. The veil of the temple was rent in twain, and 
the holy of holies laid bare, so that the great mass who had not 
dared to look upon the shining altar, save through the person of 
the high priest, were now invited to come boldly into the pres- 
ence of their father, their friend, and make every want, every 
wish, every aspiration known. The last commission of Jesus 
Christ was worldwide. The doctrine of election which He taught 
was the election of His people to a purpose, and that purpose 
was the salvation of the world. **Go," was His command, "Go 
into all the world, preach the Gospel to the whole creation." 

ONLY CLASS NOT A CLASS. 

The objective of Christianity being the salvation of the whole 
world, it is impossible to construct a church with this purpose 
that does not reach, and seek as an end to reach, the masses, 
feimply because the history of the masses is the history of the 
world. Outside of the history of the common people, there is 
nothing worth relating. They are not a class. They are the 
people. They are mankind. They are the only so-called class 
that are not a class. The history of a state, of a nation, of an 
age, is simply the story of the life of the common people. To 
reach them and to save them is to reach and save the world. To 
fail to reach them is to lose the world. In this dark, vulgar 
mass lies the destiny of the race. I said that the other classes 
are as nothing. This may seem an exaggeration, and yet it ia 



40 A BOUBGEOIS AEISTOCBAOT. 

not. The calculations of different aistronomers give a variation of 
about a million miles in distance from the earth to the sun, and 
yet this variation of a million miles is so insignificant in the cal- 
culation of the movement of the planets, that it may be thrown 
aside as a fraction that does not interfere with the final results, 
and it is possible to calculate the time of an eclipse one hundred 
years from to-day with either one of these computations of the 
sun's distance. So in the history of mankind. We may throw 
aside a few million people, who are out of the current of the 
great masses, as unworthy of consideration in computing the 
final result. In the arithmetic of the universe, a million men, 
more or less, who belong to a special class, have no appreciable 
effect in the grand total of world destinies. 

THE DEEGS AND FBOTH OF LIFE. 

Not to be of the masses is to be out of touch with the race. I 
am sorry for the poor, feeble-minded man who is anxious to trace 
his ancestry in a direction that avoids the great stream of the 
race. Human society constantly sluffs at both ends— the dregs 
at one end, the froth at the other. The upper crust is as much 
a nuisance in its way, as the dregs which fall to the bottom, and 
the man who aspires to be of the froth is in the last analysis no 
better than he who supinely sinks with the dregs. There are 
many who aspire mightily to enter a select circle of so-called 
high society. And yet I read the other day of a great whiskered 
babe in this charmed circle, who was thirty summers of age, and 
yet such a baby that he could not enter upon the daring work 
of self-propagatiton without assistance. All the world's great 
men have come from the masses of the people. There is not a 
man whose name is worth the thought of the world for an hour 
who did not come from the masses. We readily understand, 
therefore, the ideal of Jesus when He wrought among the mass- 
es. Pie sought to leaven the whole human race. He therefore 
planted his leaven in the midst of the lump. It was not an acci- 
dent that Jesuis Christ, the incarnate Son of God, was the son 



A BOURGEOIS ABI8T0CBACT. 41 

of a carpenter. It was not a blunder of God Almighty that this 
thing happened. It was a part of His plan of world redemption 
conceived in completeness before the morning of creation. To 
learn thoroughly this secret is to probe to the depth of the mis- 
sion of Christ. Here His Church must come to learn the ways 
by which it is to reach and save men. When with open hearts 
we grasp this minisitry of humility in the incarnation, we have 
touched the inmost secret of the Heart of Christ and of the 
Father. 

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHUECH's LAST OPPORTUNITY. 

There was a time in the history of the Episcopal Church when, 
if its leaders had had the breadth of heart and the wisdom and 
foresight needed for the hour, they could have made the Church 
of England the Church of the English speaking race for all time; 
but they refused to understand John Wesley. They refused to 
open the doors of the church that it might receive this vulgar 
mass, toward whom his heart went out in undying love and sym- 
pathy. The Episcopal Church lost here an opportunity of the 
ages. The question now arises, what church will have the wis- 
dom, the foresight, the love, to readjust itself in this twentieth 
century that is coming to the world needs of the people? The 
church that does will be tlhe true church of Christ, and in His 
name will conquer. 

HEAVEN THE HOME OF THE MASSES. 

Heaven is the home of the redeemed millions. The Book de- 
clares, * 'Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to 
heaven; and wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to 
destruction." We are told that this is an indication that few will 
be saved and many lost. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. Jesus was here describing the condition of the world at 
the moment He spoke. He had no earthly reference to the end 
of time and the final results. Hear the magnificent shout of the 
Apocalyptic seer as he looked at the end of time, "And I saw a 



42 A BOUEGmiS ABISTOCnACT. 

great multdtude, which no man could number, stretching away 
from the throne out into the blue of heavens, with its countless 
hosts lost amid the clouds; from every nation, and every race, 
and every country, and every tribe, and every tongue." This is 
the glimpse of heaven given to the seer. No, if you wish to avoid 
the crowd, if you desire to keep out of the rush, you will have 
to go to the other place. Hell will be the home of the select few. 
I do not say that all the upper ten are going to hell. Far from 
it. But I do say thait many of this circle, as now constituted, 
are certainly in a fair way to get there; and I am sure of one 
thing, that the man who is uncomfortable in a crowd will not 
find heaven to his taste. 

A PKIVATE PEW. 

I was talking with the conductor of a Pullman car on my way 
South from Washington the other day, and this conductor told 
me something of his life. He said that some years ago he was a 
desperate young man. He came to himself and realized his situ 
aition and determined that he would be a better man. He deter- 
mined to find the truth of religion and walk in that way. When 
he reached Washington he sought out at once the churdh of his 
father and mother and entered, determining in his heart to find 
the light if he could. He took a seat in the dhurch, and he said 
he had not remained more than a few minutes when an usher 
came up and said to him, "You cannot sit in this seat; it is a 
private pew and is taken." The young man replied, "Very well, 
I will vacate it as soon as the owners appear." The usher re- 
plied: "No, you must get up at once. We do not allow people 
to occupy the pews before the owners appear." "Well," said the 
young man, "have you no pews for visitors?" "No," replied the 
usher, "the seats are all taken by regular pewholders." So, ac- 
companied by the usher, the young man said he arose and march 
ed down the aisle and out of the church. "And when I reached 
the lobby," said he, "I turned to that usher and said, *You go to 



A B0UBGE0I8 AlilSfOCRACT. 43 

Jrour preacher and tell him that he can take his pulpit and hia 
pews, and his sextan and his ushers and his people and go to 
hell. I will never cross the threshold of a church of this faith 
again if I live to be a hundred years old.' " And he did not, 
though he married a wife who was a member of that church* 
He sought fellowship with another denomination with open 
doors and became the teacher of a large class of noble young 
men. Where there is one church with this spirit outside of New 
York you find two in New York. It is a peculiarity of our swell 
metropolitan church life. 

I do not say that such churches do no good. Sometimes they 
do la little good. I heard the other day of one that did. A wo- 
man had tried in vain for years to get iher husband to go to 
church. At last on one beautiful Sabbath morning she overper- 
suaded him and he went. When he looked around in church and 
saw how much more handsomely all the other women were 
dressed than his own wife, he was cut to the heart as he looked 
at her shabby clothes. When he went back home he handed her 
$500, and told her to buy some clothes. I am not saying that 
these churches are utterly sterile of good, they do sometimes 
accomplish such results and they are to be commended for sudh 
good works. But if we look for an institution here whose mis- 
sion is to lift man from the ditch and save him, we shall be bit- 
terly disappointed. 

I say, therefore, unhesitatingly that tbe Christian church that 
does not seek to reach the masses is a humbug. It reaches no- 
body. It is a caricature, it is a farce, it is a swindle. In my soul 
of souls I believe it is a stench in the nostrils of the Father of 
humanity. The sooner such churches are torn down and ground 
into concrete the better — ^the better for the church, the better 
for truth, the better for organic religion, the better for man. 
Such churches, as social clubs for the exchange of social courte- 
sies, might result in good, but, standing as the pretended em- 
bodiment of the regenerating spirit of the God, they cumber the 
ground. The sooner we learn this the better. 



44 A BOURGEOIS ABISTOCRAGT. 

THE SKELETON HAND. 

Now and then some of our big churches have a spasm of high 
purpose. What is the result? They build a misstion. That is, 
they build a kitchen for their parlor and make it the receptacle, 
ais far las possible, of the disagreeable elements in the parent es- 
tablishment. Or they declare free seats for an evening service 
which none of their members, who have any standing in the 
church or polite society, ever aittend. Or they may construct a 
free soup house on a back street somewhere. Bah! The people 
who are not paupers and loafers spit on such invitations as an 
insult. They are an insult. The strong man curses them, and 
the timid gives them a wide berth. I read the other day in title 
**Youth'is Companion" a story of a well known public man who 
is remarkably lean and lalmost cadaverous. He was in the back 
room of a doctor's office one day, when a newsboy opened the 
door and shouted: "Evening paper?" *'No," said the doctor, 
"but the man in the next room will buy one." The boy turning 
the knob of the door to which the doctor had pointed, opened a 
closet in which hung a huge skeleton. With a shriek of horror, 
he dashed out into the entry and ran down the stairs. The great 
man, entering the room, heard of the doctor's prank, and think- 
ing it a mean trick, opened the window and told the boy he would 
buy a paper. The newsboy, glancing suspiciously at the thin, 
bony figure in the window, called back: **No, you don't! You 
can't fool me, if you have got your clothes on." This is just the 
feeling that comes over the timid w^hen the skeleton hand of the 
soup kitchen edition of the church is extended to them. 

An aristocracy may have had its mission in the history of man, 
but the life of Jesus Christ ushered in the era of the brotherhood 
of man. Christianity is the organization simply of this brother- 
hood, so far as it is an institution at all. To fail to grasp this 
idea is to totally misconceive the purpose of Him who said speci- 
fically, "Call no man rabbi, for all ye are brethren." 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Church of Christ a Democracy. 

Government is the rock on which all Western Christendom 
has split. Democracy is the ultimate principle in the evolution 
of government. No serious student of human history, honest 
with himself and honest with the facts, can doubt this. Democ- 
racy therefore must be the goal toward which all government 
tends, civil or ecclesiastical. I believe this because I am a Chris- 
tian. The principles of democracy are fundamental to the Chris- 
tian religion. The language of Jesus Christ is on this point di- 
rect. The record declares that He called His Disciples unto 
Him and said: Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it 
over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 
Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever would become great 
a-mong you shall become your minister, and whosoever would be 
first among you shall be your servant; even as the Son of Man 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His 
life a ransom for many. As the Father hath sent Me even so 
send I you. Be not ye called rabbi, for one is your teacher, and 
all ye are brethren. And call no mam your father on the earth, 
for one is your Father which is in heaven. Neither be ye called 
masters, for one is your Master, even the Christ. But he that is 
greatest among you shall be youv servant. And whosoever shall 
exalt himself shall be humbled, and whosoever shall humble 
himself shall be exalted. 

If we accept the New Testament as the authoritative state- 
ment of the foundation, we must believe that the Church of 
Jesus Christ is a pure democracy, the grounds of whose citizen- 
ship are the alienable rights of a common brotherhood. 

I believe that the Church of Christ in its truth and purity will 
ultimately conquer the world. If so it must represent in its gov- 



46 CHURCH Ot CHRIST A DEMOCRACY, 

erning polity the principles of pure democracy. I believe that 
the Ohurch itself is simply the local assembly of God's people. 
I believe that in them vests the inalienable right to think for 
themselves, to work out their own salvation, to worship G^d 
according to the dictates of their own conscience — ^that is, in 
spirit and in truth. 

*'The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation," says 
Christ. That is, it is not from without. It is not a temporal 
force. He did not claim for it temporal authority. He distinctly 
repudiated every effort of His Disciples to set up a temporal au- 
thority, declaring on such occasions, "My kingdom is not of this 
world," meaning a world of human authority. The only Church 
to which He promised special power was the local assembly of 
believers. "Where two or three are met together, there am I in 
the midst, and that to bless." This local assembly was the only 
Apostolic Church of which we have any authentic record. 

A BOOK SUPPEESSED. 

"The Bampton Lectures" for 1888, delivered by Edwin Hatch, 
were suppressed in England by authority. These lectures were 
entitled, "The Organization of the Early Christian Churches." 
The reason why these lectures were suppressed was because 
they destroyed the foundations on which certain ecclesiastical 
authority had been reared in modern times. The more thorough 
becomes our knowledge of the ancient church the more simple 
becomes its organization, and the less pretense we have for our 
claim to any temporal authority established by Christ. The only 
authority recognized by Jesus in the establishment of His 
Church was spiritual. Hei'e He gave unlimited power. In His 
promises of dominion over evil the faith of His Disciples was 
tested to its supreme limit. Upon every occasion that His Dis- 
ciples sought the exercise of temporal authority over each other 
or over others they met with a rebuke whose emphasis could not 
be misunderstood. When they were disputing as to who should 
be the first in the knigdom— meaning the temporal kingdom they 



CEUBCE OF CHRIST A DEMOCRACY. 47 

supposed Christ about to establish — He took a little child and 
put it in the midst of them, and told them that unless they be- 
came as little children they themselves could have no part in 
His kingdom. 

POIiinCS AMONG THE APOSTLES. 

The mother of the sons of Zebedee with the sons came to 
Jesuis, as He proceeds to Jerusalem at the close of His ministry, 
and petitions Him to clothe her children with authority over the 
other disciples and over His kingdom. If Jesus had meant to 
establish any 'sort of an ecclesiastical, authoritative machine, 
here was certainly the hour in which He would have given indi- 
cation of that fact. If such had been His intention, this petition 
was not unreasonable. James and John were of the three who 
stood on the mount with Jesus and witnessed His transfigura- 
tion. They were among the favored ones of the twelve. John 
was .the disciple specially loved by Christ. Yet what is His an- 
swer to this petition? 

In the midst of the indignation of the Disciples, when they 
had heard the request. He calls them aside and delivers to them 
His emphatic message. Said Jesus: "The Gentiles exercise 
temporal authority over each other. They lord it over one 
another. They have temporal rulers that are called princes and 
benefactors. It shall not be so with you. The way to prefer- 
ment in my kingdom is the way of the cross, is the way of ssacri- 
fice, the way of service. If any man would be first let him be 
the slave of others." 

NOT TO DOMINATE BUT TO DIE. 

The mission of Jesus Christ was not to rule, but to serve. 
"The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minis- 
ter." The mission of Jesus Christ was not to dominate, but to 
die, "and to give His life a ransom for many." Over the powers 
of evil in things spiritual Chriist^s gift of authority was simply 
boundless. Upon His Church He bestowe4 the authority spirit- 



48 GHUBCH OF CHRIST A DEMOCRACY. 

ual to forgiTe sins through the proclamation of the Gospel, to 
bind and to loose. Here His Disciples' faith could not rise to 
the limit of their privileges, but it was constantly necessary for 
Him to rebuke their aspirations for temporal power, wherein 
they misunderstood His mission on earth. 

PAEBNTAL AUTHOBITY. 

Democracy is the only form of church government that can 
possibly be harmonized at last with the fundamental truths 
taught by Jesus. His doctrine of God calls for such a polity. 
He came to reveal God as the Father universal. He came to 
declare the Father. He taught the world to pray * 'Our Father." 
The authority of a father is a power that cannot be delegated. 
It is in the blood. He declared the government of God to be 
parental, the government of His Church to be parental, with the 
Parent in heaven, the family on earth bound together by the 
common ties of an equal brotherhood. His doctrine of man ne- 
cessitates the acceptance of the principles of free government. 

A CHILD OF THE KING. 

Jesus declared man to be a child of God. A child of tlhe King 
in whose veins flow the royal blood of the King. Jesus declared 
the intrinsic divinity of man as man set forth his immortal 
worth, his immortal capacities, his immortal destiny, his im- 
mortal rights. He came to die not for kings and princes and 
nobles and those who moved in the high circles of society — ^he 
died for man — man in the ditch, man in the gutter, man in the 
highway robber, man in every grade of degradation and sin. He 
declared that man was in himself, of himself, worthy of the su- 
premest sacrifice of God in love on his behalf. He taught the 
human race — all nations, all races, all kindred, all tribes, all 
classes — to look up into the heavens and to say, "Our Father." 
When He taught the world this lesson He threw around the 
race the golden chord of an universal, fraternal bond. He pro- 



CETJBCH OF CEBIST A BEMOCBACY. 49 

claimed the equality of man; equality in fraternity. He declar- 
ed that in His kingdom there should be no lording over each 
other, because they were all brethren. Titles and class distinc- 
tions He declared to belong to the unregenerate world-the world 
that was to pass away and bow at last to His universal empire. 

riEST CHTJECH SCAKDAIi. 

The ultimate outcome of every departure from the basis of 
fra/temal democracy in the history of the church has resulted in 
evil and disgrace. 

The first church scandal in sacred history before the death of 
Christ, was this disgraceful attempt of certain disciples to ob- 
tain temporal authority over their brethren. 

As we come down to the centuries after Christ, we find, with- 
out an exception, that the darkest pages in the history of Chris- 
tianity have been those on which men have written the history 
of their ambitions for power. The disgraces of church history 
are indelibly traced to the determination of men to rule over 
their fellow-men, to dictate to them what they shall believe, and 
what they shall do, and how they sihall worship God. 

THUMBSCEEW, BACK, TOBCH. 

The history of the thumbscrew is the history of this daring 
assumption of power which Christ denied to His Church. The 
history of the wheel, of the rack, of the torch, of the inquisition, 
of the massacres that disgraced the name of historic Christi- 
anity, are all traceable to this attempt to establish within the 
church what Jesus distinctly declared should not enter it. The 
disgraceful perversion of truth in the sale of indulgences, which 
led in the Catholic Church to the Reformation, is directly to be 
traced to this fundamental error of delegated authority temporal 
on earth. 

Here we find the stumbling-blocks in the way of the Church 
to-day ii^ its progress. Catholic as well as Protestant. The stum- 
bling-blocks to-da^ in the way of the Protestant church we find 



50 CHURCH OF CHRIST A DEMOCRACY. 

to be the pitiful squabbles over ecclesiastical definitions, pass- 
words and authorities. Whenever the church sets up its claim 
to ecclesiastical power on earth, it is certain to reach at last ab- 
surd lengths that lead only to disgrace and the perversion of the 
fundamental principles of Christianity. 

A PiJSS TO HEAVEN. 

A curious illustration of the development of this idea of au- 
thority was recently given in Russia, and we are still in the Rus- 
sian stage of religion. The young Grand Duchess Paul recently 
died. Before the cofiin was closed, the metropolitan put a writ- 
ten paper in the right hand of the corpse, which read as follows: 
**We, by the grace of God, prelate of the holy Russian Church, 
write this to our master and friend, St. Peter, the gatekeeper of 
the liOrd Almighty. We announce to you that the servant of the 
Lord, her imperial highness, the Grand Duchess Paul, has finish- 
ed her life on earth, and we order you to admit her into the king- 
dom of heaven without delay, for we have absolved all her sins 
and granted her salvation. You will obey our order on sight of 
this document, which we put into her hand." The grand duchess 
was buried and the worm>s destroyed the paper. Where is the 
grand duchess? 

THE CBOSS AND DEMOCBACY 

AS the church attains its true work and position, the policy of 
fraternal democracy must become more and more its working 
basis. The first democracies in the history of the world were 
built on the principles of Christianity. There were no democ- 
racies before Christ. Greece and Rome were not democracies. 
They were not even republics. The Grecian world, when Greece 
ruled the world, was divided into two classes — Greeks and bar- 
barians. The barbarian had no rights. He was a brute, the 
beast of burden for the oligarchy that called itself Grecian. 
When Rome was mistress of the world the world was divided 
Into two classes — Roman citizens and slaves. The slaves were 



CHURCH OF CHRIST A DEMOCRACY. 51 

butchered for the Roman populace. It remained for the princi- 
ples of Christianity to work out in the history of the world the 
first democracies we have ever known. The history of the cross 
has been the centre around which has clustered the fight for 
human freedom. The cross of Jesus Christ has been the ad- 
vance herald of liberty, equality, fraternity. Wherever the prin- 
ciples of Christianity were taught, class distinctions were under- 
mined at their very foundation. As the Kingdom of Christ pro- 
gresses, all such artificial distinctions must at last be destroyed. 

TBIUMPHANT DEMOCBACT. 

The American nation pre-eminently is Christian in its founda- 
tions. Its Declaration of Independence and its Constitutions are 
but paraphrases of the principles taught by Jesus Christ, and 
taught by Him in the history of the world. Democracy is the 
first manifest destiny of the world. The movement of the race to- 
wards this ultimate principle of government is resistless. It is 
a race movement. It is an age movement. It is a movement 
limited, however, in the history of the world, to the bounds of 
Christian civilization. The world has no history outside of 
Christian civilization to-day. The American democracy is but 
little over a hundred years old, and yet witness the result! Lift 
your eye and look to the north, the south, the east, the west, and 
to-day there remains on this vast continent not a siingle crowned 
head. Crowns, thrones, scepters, titles, classes are doomed. 
They belong to a past that is yielding to a future holding in its 
hands the dominating principles of truth. 

THE GOOD IN SLAVBEY. 

If you ask the question, Has not the assumption of authority 
by men, specially qualified as kings and nobles and rulers, been 
beneficial to men in the history of the world ? I answer. Yes. 
often this has been true. Take for instance the institution of 
slavery. Slavery has its beneficent aspect. I honestly believe 
that when the history of slavery in the Southern States shall be 



52 CmmCR OF CHRIST A DEMOCRACY, 

written a hundred years from now, when passions antf prejudi- 
ces shall have passed away, the historian will find that the bene- 
ficent aspects of slavery in the South were far larger than the 
world suspects to-day. The South lifted the African from the 
bondage of savagery into the light and strength of Christian-civi- 
lization. He lifted him at a bound across the chasm of centu- 
ries. Yet while this is true, I thank God that there is not to-day 
the clang of a single slave's chaiin on this continent. Slavery 
may have had its beneficent aspects, but democracy is the desti- 
ny of the race, because all men are bound together in the bonds 
of fraternal equality with one common Father above. 

A TEAGEDY IN TBADITION. 

Institutions that were of use in the past will have no place in 
the history of the future. They may have belonged to the con- 
dition of infancy of the race, but have no part in the story of 
the race's manhood. Out in Kansas recently there lived an old 
grandfather ninety years old, with his son and granddaughter. 
The granddaughter was taken ill with the grip. The old grand- 
father had been a physdcian in his time in an Eastern village. 
He tried all his mild remedies in vain and finally came to the 
conclusion that bleeding was necessary. The father refused to 
permit the experiment, but while he was away the old man per- 
suaded the girl to let him try taking a little blood from her arm. 
In his feeble hand the knife slipped, and the brachial artery was 
severed. The grandfather tried in vain to stem the flow of blood. 
When the father returned, he found his daughter dead and his 
father by her side in a swoon. The poor old man could not rally 
from the terrible shock and soon died. The old doctor may have 
had his uses once with his lancet. I fear his real usefulness de- 
pended more on the imagination of his patient than on the real- 
ities of good in his remedies. Whatever may have been his uses 
in the past, he belongs to an era from which the world, as the 
world is free, is delivered. The cry "Back to the old paths!" is 
the feeble rallying call of a reminiscent senility. 



CHURCH^OF CHRIST A [BEMOCEACY, 53 

The church must either lead or be led in this world movement 
of the race. We are now in the first years of the reign of the 
common people. Power has been gradually descending or as- 
cending, as you may like, from the head of king and prince and 
aristocrat, until the crown of empire rests upon the head of the 
everyday unit of society. Science bends its energy toward dis- 
covering the secrets of nature that will make the life of the mass- 
es richer and better. History now records not the life of kings 
and princes and armies, but tells us the story of the everyday 
life of the common people. The eyes of the world are on the great 
undermasses. The church that holds the ideal of a decaying 
aristocracy in this age, is calling upon a dead past to save from 
the resistless avalanche of a new world life. 



CHAPTER V. 

Sectarianism. 

Sectarianism is the personial equation in religion. As many 
men so many minds. Grant to these men religious liberty, and 
their division along the lines of personal sympathies, tastes and 
antipathies will be certain. In this sense, sectarianism has a true 
mission to fulfil for man. In its true development 'c should 
mean liberty in non-essentials, diversity within a great unity. 

The denial of liberty in the past has been the potent cause of 
the strife and bloodshed that has disgraced the record of historic 
Ohristianity. 

Uniformity gained by force does not mean unity. The belief 
thajt it does is the one tragic superstition of our history. To pre- 
serve this "unity" of the Jewis/h religion the constituted authori- 
ties crucified Jesus Christ. Such is the record of the thumb- 
screw, the rack, the wheel, the torch. This spirit drenched Eng- 
land in blood, bathed the world in Huguenot tears, sent Alva 
into the Netherlands to butcher 18,000 victims in six years, and 
in Protestant history burned Servetus in the Old World, the 
witches in New England, and imprisoned and whipped the Bap- 
tists in Virginia. The best definition, therefore, of a saint ever 
made is "One cannonaded while living; canonized when dead." 

Man can only see anything through the medium of his own 
personality. The captain of a river steamer was recently re- 
ceived in to the church of his choice. He was a man of energy. 
They made him an officer. Soon after his election, he heard one 
day that there was a leak in the church. He promptly went to 
the building, took a lantern and went down into the cellar to lo- 
cate it. From what other point of view could a sailor look for a 
leak? 

There are no two leaves alike; no two trees alike. Nature du- 



SECTABIAmSM. 6€ 

plicates nothing. And her life is one! Infiinite diversity in a 
great unity. 

It is just beginning to dawn on the Christian world that this 
is a possibility. But the dawn slowly breaks. When the Sun 
of love and liberty rises, one of the chief causes of our stumbling 
will be removed. 

We have much zeal and sacrifice in New York, but as yet it 
takes the form of the emphasis of small differences into abnor- 
malities. It is sectarian zeal rather than Christian. Many of 
our leading pastors wear out their shoes and their souls running 
after their own members to keep them out of the church of a 
zealous rival around the corner. 

The Presbyterians established a successful mission work in 
Persia. When its success was observed the Episcopal Church 
sent over its "priests" to tell these deluded people that they had 
received a spurious brand of Christianity, and that the only gen- 
uine article bore their trade-mark, duly copyrighted and pro- 
tected by a legislature that had adjourned sine die centuries ago 
and never met since. Congregationalism holds New England and 
Presbyterians now are establishing missions in New England to 
save their people from the damnation of error. In New York's 
richest and most prosperous districts, where churches are least 
needed, we have the most shameful and senseless crowding of 
Protestant churches, where fundamental differences are nothing. 

Nine-tenths of the doctrines of all the denominations of Christ- 
endom are one — Roman Catholic and Protestant. We believe in 
one God — manifesting himself as Father, Son, Spirit. 

We believe that we have salvation only in Christ. 

Our songs are one. Toplady and Wesley were violently antag- 
onistic in the definition of theology, but we all sing "Rock of 
Ages" and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Newman was a Roman 
C®;tholic Cardinal, but we all sing "Lead Kindly Light." The 
author of '*In the Cross of Christ I Glory" and "Nearer My God 
to Thee" was a Unitarian, But we all sing their songs, and our 
heart life is one! 



66J SEGTABIANISM, 

In ethics, the Christian world is one. Love to God and love to 
man, and the Ten Commandmen'ts are the ethical code of Christ- 
endom. ; ; 

Our divisions are on stupid trifles. The smaller the difference, 
the fiercer the conflict. 

The old councils wrestled for days over petty differences of 
opinion on the details of theological science, and occasionally the 
Bishops kicked each other to death by way of argument. 

The Greek and the Latin Churches are separated by fewer 
differences than any other, and yet they are the widest apart. 
The Pope and the Czar are implacable foes and eternal rivals. 
The unspeakable Turk stands guard with his musket to keep 
Greek and Latin priests from tearing each other to pieces over 
the tomb of Jesus during Passion week! 

The effects of the sectarian method are everywhere apparent 
in the centres of our modern life, and nowhere so painfully as in 
New York. The consequence is that just those fields whose 
needs are most painful are those invariably deserted in the sec- 
tarian scramble for the best positions. One million four hundred 
thousand people in New York live in second and third-class ten- 
ements. There are districts of 50,000 of these people without a 
single church of any sort among them! The scraimble for choice 
corner lots in the favored districts continues unabated. Imagine, 
if you can, a consultation among the Apostles on the subject of 
real estate in Jerusalem and Rome for church sites. Imagine, if 
you can, St. Peter describing with eloquence, a choice bit of 
ground on a new avenue, soon to be peopled by the very rich 
merchants whose caravans brought in daily the treasures of the 
heathen world. 

The waste of men, zeal and money in the senseless duplica- 
tion of Protestant Churches in communities where they are not 
needed, is something appalling. It is estimated by a careful 
church statistician, who has made a detailed study of the sub- 
ject, that there are 25,000 such Protestant churches in America, 



SECTABIANISM. 57 

that have no reason for their existence. More than $12,500,000 
are locked up in these dead plants. It is a crime. 

In division and fight there is always weakness. Whenever 
the men who conduct any great business begin to fight them- 
selves, forthwith the business is mixed. It does not matter how 
ancient and honorable the establishment, it must go down in a 
factional fight. This law ds absolutely without exception. In 
one sense the visible church is a business establishment, and its 
affairs must be conducted on business principles. Some years 
ago tihe country was crazy on the subject of baseball. Thousands 
of people crowded the fields fto witness this truly national amuse- 
ment. The baseball people began to fight among themselves and 
their successes. We had the senseless duplication of buildings 
and grounds at enormous expense. They fought each other in 
the newspapers. Then the public quit the habit of baseball and 
went back to its business, and there was a season of wrecks and 
assignments and reorganization. 

Recently the American public were crazy on yachts and yacht- 
ing. The rage continued until the big yachtsmen began to quar- 
rel. Whereupon the people quit reading about yachts and turned 
their attention to other things. This has been precisely the effect 
of our senseless and extravagant wars with one another in the 
religious world. I wonder when it will cease and we will grant 
each other the right to differ on small things and yet work to- 
gether as one man to accomplish the great thing — the salvation 
of man. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Dead Theologies. 

Theology is a science. Religion is a life. The one is an analy- 
sis, the other a fact. Theology therefore must always express 
itself in the terms of the knowledge of the age. It bears the 
same relation to religion that: the science of physiology bears to 
the body. The old physiologists knew nothing about the circu- 
lation of the blood, or the nervous system. Each new discovery 
enlarges by so much the science which was its expression. As- 
tronomy has grown as our knowledge of the heavens has ex- 
panded from year to year. We welcome every new discovery 
and add it to the sum of our knowledge with gratitude to God. 
The unique feature about the science of theology is that many of 
its professors deny tihe possibility of enlargement. The human 
race has grown from infancy to mature manhood; the knowledge 
of the world has been increased every hour of its history — and 
yet theologians insist that thedogy is a mummy and a mummy 
it shall ever remain. The stage-coach yielded to the \estibuled 
limited, the sailing vessel to the ocean greyhound, but theology 
rakes up the ashes of a dead past and weeps over the grave of 
Adam. We are solemnly dnformed that the minds of the long 
past centuries only could comprehend and express truth. We 
are commanded to learn the science of theology only from the 
ages in which the science of medicine consiisted in bleeding; che- 
mistry was a black art, astronomy the profession of a fakir, and 
electricity was regarded as a manifestation of the devil or the 
shekina of God! Knowledge is the inheritance of all mankind 
except the preacher. He must not taste of the tree of knowledge 
under penalty of death. 

PKOGKESS AND STAGNATION. 

In 1840 a young Irishman was sent to the New York peniten- 
tiary for life for killing a man in a drunken frenzy. He was 



DEAD THEOLOGIES. 59 

pardoned some time ago by the governor. He emerged from the 
prison a grey-haired, bent old man. The world was new to him. 
He walked the streets of New York in unceasing wonder. He 
gazed upon the Brooklyn Bridge as thoug'h it were a miracle. 
The towering fifteen story building seemed about to topple and 
crush him. What a different world it was from the one he knew 
fifty years ago. New York had grown from a town of 300,000 
inhabitants to the huge metropolis, the centre of 3,000,000 of 
people, the second city of the civilized world. Human slavery 
had been abolished, and the nation, baptized in blood, had risen 
to a new life. The German Empire had been created ; the maps* 
of the world made over again. Steam had been practically ap- 
plied to travel and the face of the earth transformed. There 
were no more seas. Liverpool had been brought nearer to New 
York than San Francisco. The telegrapih had made the world 
a whispering gallery, and the cylinder printing press universal 
education a fact, not a dream; while the dynamo had crowned 
the brow of humanity with a coronet of ligtit. He gazed upon 
a new world. Old things had passed away. But had he ex- 
amined the Protestant churches of New York he would have 
found but one serious change, and that geographical — they had 
moved uptown! Their theology sliows no growth — their methods 
are the methods used by their fathers and their grandfathers, in 
this age of progress, a solecism — stupid, irrational, immoral! 

HOMES FOE THE AGED. 

The results of this method were inevitable. The men who 
have made this age the miracle of history soon learn to treat the 
church with contempt. They leave it to the women and children 
and go about the more serious work of life — that life whose 
activities involve the progress of the human race, that life of 
reality in which deeds are the only creeds that are worthy of 
notice. Hence the Protestant churches bee:>me more and more 
simply homes for the aged, the infirm, the feeble minded, the 



60 DEAD THEOLOGIES. 

griefs of widowhood and kindergarten for children young and 
old. 

The essence of Protestantism is the rebellion of the reason 
against the shackles of a mechanical "authority." Protestant- 
ism, with conscience fettered by tradition, stultifies its own life 
and has no reason for its existence. Protestantism, because of 
its very nature, must go forward or die. There iis a tendency 
even in great minds to grow weary and stop in their upward 
march, become traditionalists and reactionaries. Find this where 
you will it means decay. Even Daniel Webster illustrates this 
truth. ; 

In 1838, Daniel Webster, our greatest constitutional lawyer, 
said on the fl-oor of the United States Senate, in opposition to a 
measure then before Congress to establish a post route from In- 
dependence, Mo., to the mouth of the Columbia River: "What 
do we want with this vast worthless area? This region of sav- 
ages and wild beasts, of deserts, shifting sands and whirlwinds 
of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever 
hope to put these great deserts,or these endless mountain ranges, 
impregnable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? 
What can we ever hope to do with the Western coast? A coast 
of three thousand miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting, and 
not a harbor in it! What use have we for such a country? Mr. 
President, I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to 
place the Pacific coast one inch nearer Boston than it now is." 

But there were found younger spirits willing to make the rash 
experiment. In 1894 Colorado produced $11,000,000 in gold and 
$14,000,000 in silver. The city of Denver has 160,000 inhabitants, 
and its smooth pavements flash daily with 20,000 bicycles. And 
what would California, with its tons of gold and silver and mil- 
lions of tons of golden fruit, and its great shipyards say to-day 
to this polished effort of the great constitutional lawyer I Where 
one obstacle is thrown in the way of material progress, a hun- 
dred barriers are erected before the pioneer of theology. He is 
not only opposed — ^he is cursed, hounded, persecuted, excommu- 



DEAD THEOLOGIES, 61 

nicated! Althangh New York is the centre of our progressive 
life, no man has dared to brook the traditions of the elders in the 
world of theology without having the hounds set on his trail. 

The answer to any aggressive movement has been "Back to 
the old paths!" Are these traditionalists and reactionaries 
worthy of leadership ? What is their history ? Every step in the 
progress of the race toward freedom and light has been fought, 
Inch by inch, with this old enemy of knowledge. The supersti- 
tion that seeks to limit the horizon of the human soul within the 
bounds of personal or ancestral traditions has ever been, and is 
to-day, one of the deadliest foes with which the hopes of man 
ever contended. It seems utterly preposterous that in this en- 
lightened age, here in New York City, the centre of free thought 
for a new world, we should have to-day the narrowest and most 
bigoted ecclesiasticism. 

HEKEST ! HERESY ! 

Yet it is so. One hundred and sixteen clergymen of the Epis- 
copal Church that recently made overtures to the Christian 
world for church union fiercely demand the scalps of two of her 
mightiest men for daring to invite the ministers of other Qhris- 
tian bodies to speak to their people at a special Friday evening 
service! Our good Presbyterian brethren also demanded the 
head of Prof. Briggs in a charger because he had been guilty of 
the crime of thinking, and worse still, of giving utterance to his 
thoughts. These men invariably change their tactics during the 
progress of the battle they hasten to join. They first call to war 
with a whoop— with a mighty noise — with a great hoot! They 
next declare in the fiercest language that the Bible is being de- 
stroyed. Then in a little while after they have crucified some of 
God's noblest servants, they all solemnly protest that in reality 
they always held the same doctrine! They then blow their noses, 
scent the air for a new trail, and whet their jaw bones for anoth- 
er conflict in new fields, 



62 DEAD THEOLOGIES. 

I fearlesdy maintain that the men who have been the cham- 
pions of the forms and traditions of ecclesiasticism have ever 
been, and are to-day, the deadliest enemies of true Christianity. 

They have systematically repressed, crucified or destroyed the 
personality of the noblest ministers of truth. 

CHEIST A HEEETIC. 

These are the men who crucified the Christ. They slew Him 
because He kept not the word of the elders. They hated Him 
because He emphasized the truth that God is spirit and they 
that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. He set 
at naught their ecclesiastical tom-foolery and plainly told them 
that they were whited sepulchres — hypocrites who could not 
escape the damnation of hell. Theirs was the most constant, 
persistent, dogged and utterly devilish opposition Jesus encoun- 
tered. They followed Him like hounds. They asked Him cun- 
ningly devised questions to convict Him of heterodoxy. They 
tried to catch Him in His words. They accused Him of eating 
with unwashed hands. They accused Him of breaking the Sab- 
bath. They declared that He ate with sinners. They said He 
was the friend of publicans and harlots. He did all these things, 
He was all these things, plainly telling them that He came not 
to call the righteous, but sinners. When -at last they despaired 
of binding his divine personality with the chains of their tradi- 
tions, they slew Him. They flapped their sable wings, called 
their council under cover of the night, condemned Him to de^th 
for heresy, dragged Him up Calvary's hill, and crucified Him, 
mocking and saying: "He saved others! Himself He cannot 
save!" 

Since the crucifixion these men who have been busy keeping 
the traditions of the elders have continued bravely their work of 
destroying the divinest personalities among the servants of 
truth. Traditionalism stoned Stephen to death. Traditional- 
ism slew the Apostles. Traditionalism has been busy with red 



DEAD THEOLOGIES, 63 

hands, butchering the Lord's anointed down to the latest gene- 
ration of the nineteenth century. 

JOHN WESLEY, **A LIAB." 

Canon Farrar says of John Wesley: 

"The most simple, the most innocent, the most generous of 
men, he was called a liar, an immoral and designing intriguer, a 
pope, a Jesuit, a swindler, the most notorious hypocrite living. 
The clergy, I grieve to say, led the way. Rowland Hill called 
Wesley a lying apostle, a designing wolf, a dealer in stolen wares, 
and said that he was as unprincipled as a rook, and as silly as 
jackdaw, first pilfering his plumage, and then going proudly 
forth to display it to -a laughing world. The revival of religion 
had to make its way among hostile bishops, furious controver- 
sialists, jibing and libellous newspapers, angry men of the world, 
prejudiced juries, and brutal lies. And yet it prevailed, because 
one with God is always in a majority. 

CHOKED TO DEATH. 

They have choked them to death with orthodox iron collars 
forged around their young necks in their preliminary 
training. Many of these traditional instiiiutions advertise their 
shops with the boast that their collars are warranted to hold for 
time and eternity; that if a man remains long enough to fix it 
firmly about his neck, he is certain to think only in one set 
groove, and then only to a limited degree. When the men begin 
to grow, the collar never grows. It was not made to grow. In- 
flammation sets in. The man either breaks the collar or chokes 
to death. To break the collar is a very painful operation. The 
flesh has grown to it and all around it Besides, if he persists in 
breaking the collar the traditionalists who forged it proceed to 
do their best to break his neck before it has time to get new 
strength in freedom. Thousands of men allow themselves to be 
choked gradually to death rather than enter on the painful strug- 
gle, and perhaps get their necks broken. They smother the best 



64 DEAD THEOLOGIES, 

ministers to death. Smother them to death with the old, worm- 
eaten mantles that some good men of another generation wore. 
David, *'when he had served his generation, fell on sleep." But 
these men insist that the generation of the past, not the genera- 
tion of the present, be served. Some of the best preachers ever 
called to this city have been smothered to death because tradi- 
tionalists have heaped upon them the worn-out rubbish of former 
ages. These traditionalists are not altogether heartless. They 
have feeling. They weep mightily over the fall of Adam, while 
the children of Adam stumble over them into hell. They are too 
busy weeping over the grave of Adam to pay any attention to 
his children. Besides, they take refuge in the consoling doctrine 
of predestined damnation and election, and give free course to 
their historic and ancient grief. 

FliAME, SWORD, THUMBSCEEW, EACK 

Traditionalists have heaped upon the church of Christ the 
infamy of a history of cruelty and inhumanity, of flame and 
swo-'d, thumbscrew, rack and torch. 

Ecclesiastical Christianity is one thing, the Christianity of 
Christ another thing. These two things are no more alike than 
blood and milk. The bloodiest pages in the history of the hu- 
man race have been those written by the merciless hand of the 
traditionalist. Tradition sent Alva into the Netherlands to ravage 
with a storm of fire and blood, and disgrace the name of humanity 
in the sacred name of Christ. Tradition revoked the edict of 
Nantes, until the soil of France was drunk with the blood of her 
children. Tradition, breathing the breath of hell, led the trem- 
bling sons and daughters of faith, barefooted and blindfolded, 
over burning plowshares, stretched them upon the wheel and 
rack, tore them limb from limb, sparing not for the groan of age, 
the cry of motherhood, or the lisp of childhood. With hellish 
glee they kindled the martyrs' fires, and danced with joy at the 
sight of roasting flesh. 

Tradition with holy zeal hunts the Anabaptists like wild 



DEAD THEOLOGIES, 65 

beasts, and on the ahore of a new world burns people at the 
stake in New England and lays the lash on the Baptist in Vir- 
ginia. The Bible they have made a bludgeon with which to brain 
heretics. Its word they have forged into chains. Its leaves they 
have used as fuel to kindle martyr fires. 

CRIMINAIi STUPIDITY. 

With unfathomable stupidity these men have persisted in ar- 
raigning the reason, the heart and the knowledge of the race 
against Jesus Christ and his religion. 

They have assaulted science and set back the progress of the 
world for generations at a time. Science is the revealer of God 
in nature. They have sought to put out the light of science in 
the name of God. They stretched Galileo on the rack because he 
invented the telescope and discovered the laws of God and the 
heavens. They tortured him in the name of the God whom he 
was serving. For giving wings to his thoughts and soaring amid 
the elements to find G^d, they burned Bruno. When William 
Carey, the apostle of modern missions, rose tremblingly and gave 
voice to the great love that burned in his soul for the heathen 
world, tradition, with utmost dignity, thundered, "sit down, 
young man.'* 

In the name of a God of a human made orthodoxy, they have 
dethroned reason, crowned and canonized stupidity. In other 
words, they have insisted on making a puerile system of human 
dogmatism the infallible guide of thought. They have set the 
bounds beyond which the mind of man shall not dare even think. 
They insist that the very language of this human dogmatism 
that smells of the dust and rubbish of the Dark Ages, shall be 
considered divine and infallible. The errors, controversies, ab- 
surdities and ignorance of the past they insist shall be now held 
sacred, because it is ancient. They insist that an age of the 
world in which God and His angels dwelt afar off in some un- 
thinkable corner of the universe, and tJie devil and his minions 



66 DEAD THEOLOGms. 

were everywhere near, that such an age only could furnish men 
competent to formulate a creed worthy of the God of love. 

That an age which rejoiced in the burning of witches, the trial 
and execution of dumb animals as criminals, and the public 
whipping of church bells for heresy, should give forth the last 
effort of the race in the expression of true faith in God. Under 
the guidance of such men the dogmatic traditionalists of to-day 
are sent as a judgment upon the world. Contrast the attitude 
of Orthodox assault on science with the spirit of the scientific 
seekers after truth in this century. Prof. Lincoln of Brown 
University describes in the "Youth's Companion" a scene which 
he witnessed at Berlin when he was attending a session of the 
Royal Academy of Sciences. A large company of learned men 
had gathered in a handsome academic hall. The members were 
seated at a long table, at the head of which was the platform 
occupied by the ofBcers. Prof. Lincoln took a seat near the door, 
' and listened to a paper which one of the learned men was read- 
ing. The door was quietly opened while nearly all the mem- 
bers was sitting with their backs to it. A venerable man, with 
stooping figure and an infirm step, softly crossed the threshold, 
and seemed anxious to avoid observation. One of the members 
at the table happened to turn his head, and caught sight of the 
visitor. Instantly he rose in his place. The president of the 
academy, glancing across the room, also sprang to his feet. Then 
one member after another recognized the impressive face and 
figure of the old man who was quietly making his way toward 
the seat reserved for him, and before he had reached it the whole 
company were on their feet. The learned man who was reading 
the paper was silent, and officers, members and spectators re- 
mained standing until the aged visitor had taken a , seat. The 
guest was Alexander Humboldt, then in his eighty-eighth year, 
infirm in body, but vigorous in mind. The academy paid him a 
unique tribute of silent reverence as the hoary leader of mo- 
dern science. There was no applause when he entered the hall, 
and neither clapping of hands nor shuffling of feet when he took 



t)EAI> TSEOtOOlMs. 6t 

his seat. They stood in their places as thoug'h a king had come 
in among them, and then silently resumed their seats, and list- 
ened to the reading of the scientific paper. 

Orthodox religion alone can claim the crowning stupidity of 
heading the assault on Humboldt and his school! These holy 
simpletons have driven manhood from the modern church. The 
congregations of your ordinary traditionalism to-day are com- 
posed of about four women to one man. The men have formed 
themselves into scores of secret societies outside of the church. 
These societies many of them, have morj of real Chritianity 
than the churches they have undermined. A real human brother- 
hood is their basis; a vital religion is their bond of unity. This 
is an awful indictment of the dead formalism and ecclesiastical 
dry rot with which our churches are afflicted. I know of some 
co-operative societies of workingmen w^ho make no pretentions 
to religion, who are embodying in life the spirit and teachings of 
Je-sus Christ in a higher degree than scores of churches I know. 
There are "infidel" clubs in this very city that may go into the 
kingdom of heaven before some churches. 

ALIENATED THE MASSES. 

These champions of traditionalism have neglected and alien- 
ated the masses of the people, emptied the churches, and pro-» 
duced a collapse of organic church life in the centres of our civi- 
lization. Here you touch the secret of our fatal up-town move-* 
ment of churches. Why do they move up-town? Simply be- 
cause tradition refuses to readjust itself to a changed civiliza-' 
tion. They thus become apostles of the gospel of geography. 
They say the people have moved up-town — that the people have 
gone. Take your stand there beside one of those great church 
buildings being torn down. Do you want people? As far as the 
eye can reach, rolls a restless ocean of humanity. 

These are the men who have in large measures driven sipirit- 
ual religion out of the church. 

Dr. Bruce, of Scotland, well said: *'I certainly believe that 



68 DEAD^ THEOl GIES. 

there are many more unpolished diamonds hidden in the church- 
less mass of humanity than the respectable church going part of 
the community has any idea of. I am even disposed to think 
that a great and steadily increasing portion of the moral worth 
of society lies outside of the Church, separated from it, not by 
godlessness but rather by exceptionally moral earnestness. 
Many, in fact, have left the church in order to be Christians." 
— Kingdom of God, p. 144. 

There is being built in fact a vast Church outside the Church. 
Men have emphasized the tithing of mint and cummin, neglect- 
ing the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and 
f aijtih, until they have destroyed faith in the minds of thousands. 

Is it not time we should turn on the light in every department 
of human thought? Will my creed suffer? If so, let it suffer. 
If I am wrong, the man who shows where I am wrong is my 
friend. I shall thank him for it. I rejoice in a free conscience. 
It is my birthright as a man. 

Let the prophets of the race move forward with fearless tread ! 
The church mustbe rescued from the curse of traditionalism or die. 
Let us adapt our methods of work to the needs of the hour — to 
the end that men will be reached and saved. 



CHAPTER VII. 
The Success of the Salvation Army. 

The Salvation Army not only holds its awn among the desert- 
ed thousands of down-town New York, but builds here its great 
barracks and lifts its bannei*s triumphant amid the ruin® of cow- 
ardly churches that have moved up-town. 

Why? 

Because they use common sense methods of work. They have 
become all things to all men, if by all means they may save some. 

They are the bearers of good news, and their feet are swift. 
*'How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings!" 
They are in earnest and they believe they are commissioned to 
bear a divine message to the world. Children, some time ago, 
in a vacant lot in Philadelphia, were found playing with bank 
checks — a valuable bundle of which had been lost from the mail. 
The little fellows seemed to have an idea that it was commercial 
paper, and they were playing bank — had established a play bank 
and were doing a thriving business. They were handling money 
which had kept the wires hot from city to city trying in vain to 
find it, and when found of course the messengers hastened to 
gather up the precious documents and file them away. So it 
seems to me sometimes the church has been playing with grea^: 
truths. Our churches have set themselves down in some favored, 
quiet nooks where people are not likely to disturb them, where 
the police will not interfere with them or passersby intrude, and 
there they play at the great work of a world*s salvation. There 
with sacred script, with these messages as good as gold, they 
play at church, at saving men, at the great work God has com- 
missioned them to do in earnest. 

If you look at the work of this army you will find they are 



70 THE SUCCESS OF THE SALVATION ARMY. 

dead in earnest. They know the value of the script they handle, 
and they go on swift feet to carry it to those who need it most. 
They do not build churches, they build men. The early apos- 
tolic church did not build church buildings: they had no time. 
It wa« not until Christianity began to crystallize and to fossilize 
in the forms of institutions that men began to build tombs in 
which to place it. These men who have thus sought to revive 
apostolic Christianity have gone in the same ways as the first 
disciple of Jesus Christ went forth into the world, using all in- 
stitutions that exist, if by all these means they may reach and 
save men — "all things to all men if by all means some may be 
saved.'* In India they become Indians; in America, Americans. 
In the wilds of a savage nation they would go and adopt their 
customs and dress, if need be, to save them. What a contrast 
to our institutional Christianity! 

WITHIN THE SHADOW OF ST. MAEK's. 

John Ruskin describes in marvelous language the great Ca- 
thedral of St. Mark. It is as though some wonderful artist had 
taken the brush of genius and painted before your very eyes its 
glory. And, after he finishes that wonderful description, he 
turns his attention to the people that surge before the cathedral 
doors and says that not one of them — not a passerby, not a sol- 
dier or civiuian, not a beggar or huckster, not a solitary soul of 
the great crowed — ever looks up at its beauty. 

But up against the very foundation stones the huckster pushes 
his stall. Within its shadow the soldiers discourse their music, 
which drowns the sound of the great organ. And, without, 
lounging like lizards basking in the sun, are the men who, with 
their stiletto, would stab in the heart every musician that pipes 
to them, did they dare. And the images of Christ and the saints 
look down on it all! Oh, paraphrase of ancient Jerusalem, where 
in her temples they bought and sold! Institutions, glorious in 
form, ceremonies magnificent — but a lapse and lost mass of 
people surge by your cathedral and your temple, unmindful of its 



THE SUCCESS OF THE SALVATION ARMY. 71 

existence, with the devil in their heart, and with all the powers 
of destruction growing in every muscle and transmitted genera- 
tion unto generation, piling wrath against wrath, against that 
day, when up to the doors of that cathedral will surge a mob 
that will raze it to the ground and leave not one stone upon 
another unless he who ministers at the altar within shall re- 
member that Jesus Christ came not to build institutions, but to 
save men. 

NOT CHUECH POLITICIANS. 

In their purpose and methods they are also Christlike. They 
are the friends of the poor and outcast world, and so was Jesus 
Christ. Not where they can get the most do they locate their 
stations, but where they can do the most. When we build our 
churches we want the best plot in the city, where the grand bou- 
levard intersects the great cross-town street, where the elite are 
moving, where the bankers and brokers are congregating — there 
buy a lot and build your church, and you will rent your pews at 
the highest possible rate. 

In the results of their work they show the world that they are 
true disciples of Christ. Do they represent the true spirit of the 
true Christ? Come before them and ask the same supreme test 
John asked of Christ, and take the answer Jesus gave and apply 
it to them. 

John sent to Jesus and asked Him if He be the Messiah, or if 
another should be expected,, and Jesus replied telling him the 
lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and, 
climax of all, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Stand 
before the church to-day and submit to it this supreme test. 
Stand before the army of cranks to-day and submit to them this 
supreme test and hear the answer. You say: "What is all this 
noise with which you have eome to disturb the peace and civili- 
zation of the twentieth century? Are you disciples of Jesus?*' 
They can answer you in the words of Jesus Christ, "Go and tell 
the questioners that the lame walk, the blind see, the lepers are 



72 THE SUCCESS OF TEE SALVATION ABMT, 

cleansed; that the dead are raised and the poor have the Gospel 
preached to them." 

TKA.T ONE MAN BOOTH. 

The Bishop of Winchester says: "If ever the masses are to 
be converted it must be by an organized lay body. The Salva- 
tion Army has set the church the example of courage." Canon 
Liddon, whose voice thrilled the world, after attending a Salva- 
tion Army meeting with Mr. Stead, said: "It filled me with 
shame. I feel guilty when I think of myself. To think of these 
poor people, with their imperfect grasp of truth — what a contrast 
between what they and we are doing! When I see how little 
we produce, compared with what that meeting exhibited, I take 
shame to myself." 

John Morley, "free thinker," skeptic, said in 1880: "We have 
all been on the wrong track, and the result is loss to show than 
that one man Booth. Oh, we children of light — Spencer, Arnold, 
Harrison and the rest — spend our lives in endeavoring to dispel 
superstition and bring in an era based on reason, education and 
enlightened self-interest, but this man has produced more direct 
effect upon this generation than all of us put together." Mr. 
Stead says: "The Army has deserved well of the State because, 
training the people in self-government,it has done more to spread 
the genuine culture among the masses than Cambridge and 
Oxford." 

It is needless to multiply those testimonies from great men. 
They are convincing. The voice of the Christian world, the 
voice of the independent thinking world to-day, is practically a 
unit as to the results of the work of this Army. 

STONED AND OUBSED. 

Yet they were mobbed and stoned and cursed. So were Jesus 
and His Disciples, and any movement, that starts in this world 
and is not cursed and stoned and mobbed, you may be certain of 
one thing — ^that there is too close a connection between that 



TEE SUCCESS OF TEE SALVATION AE3fY, 73 

movemen't and the world itself, for if a man attempts to really 
reach and save this world, he must go along the lines not on 
which the world itself moves, but he must take the model, Jesus 
Christ, and if he does he will land on Calvary, if he lives that 
life to its inevitable, logical conclusion. This is the first sign of 
genuine discipleship of Jesus Christ. They were stoned and 
cursed and hissed by the world and the church. 

They were accused of sensationalism, and all the sins that 
oome from it, especially by the church. Being sensational they 
were strictly apostolic and Christlike. The apostle Paul was a 
great sensationalist — that is, he was fool enough to say: **I will 
be all things to all men, if by that means I may save some. When 
I go to Athens I will be an Athenian, and I will go where they 
are." And he went and stirred things up wherever he went. 
When he v/ent into a town they were sometimes so excited that 
they dragged him before the magistrate and put him out. The 
men who followed Jesus were thus sensational. They had to be 
if they preached Christ. 

SACEED EHEUMATISM. 

For Christ himself was a sensation. From the day as a little 
child he sent back that sensational message to His mother in the 
Temple, **I am about my father's business," to the day He at- 
tacked Scribe and Pharisee and said: "You miserable hypo- 
crites, whited sepulchers, full of dead men's bones within, beau- 
tiful without, you make long prayers; you stand in public places, 
and your hearts are black as hell. O generation of vipers, who 
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" To whom is 
He talking? To the priests and bishops and cardinals — the great 
churchmen of His day. He was talking about the established 
church to the men who sat in the seat of Moses and delivered 
the law to the people — the men unto whom had been delivered 
the statutes of the most high God. From the day He began to 
work His miracles at Cana of Galilee, down to the end, He was 
a sensationalist in the highest and truest sense of the word, and 



74 THE SUCCESS OF THE SALVATION ARMY. 

anybody that really does the work of Christ is bound to »tir 
things wherever he goes, and if he does not he has failed to 
touch the true heart and life of the Christ. 

For my own part I wonld rather be a drummer in the Salva- 
tion Army and bang an old drum through this world for the sal- 
vation of men than stand in the mightiest cathedral on this earth 
and preach the most glorious Gospel to a handful of good old 
men and women who are so old in the faith that they have sacred 
rheumatism. I had rather be a human sandwich and march 
through the streets with the Gospel written on my back and 
breast, and preach the Gospel thus, than stand beneath Gothic 
arches in your most magnificent frescoed church and spout to 
vacant pews. I would rather be an old John Pounds, of Ports- 
mouth, with a hot potato in my hand — he took one and stuck it 
under the nose of boys in the streets, until he saved 500 and 
made them magnificent men — I would rather wield that hot 
potato for the salvation of men than wear the tiara of Leo XIII. 
and sit on the throne of St. Peter's before the assembled pilgrims 
of the world. 

Is there a man so dull in the world to-day that does not know 
that William Booth and his sainted wife were God's own pro- 
phets. Not one! Yet remember the reception which they first 
met. 

There are some lessons the church ought to get from this army. 
Firsit, in the Solvation Army it does not take a long creed to save 
the world. liook at our creed tinkers to-day, with their ham- 
mers and nails and old manuscripts,tinkering away ait the creeds 
of the world. I thank God for the example of men, fool enough 
to believe that all that is necessary for a creed is to believe in the 
Father, His Son, Jesus, and to love the man that He came and 
died for so tenderly and deeply that he is willing to go down into 
the ditch and put his arms under him and say to him in his rags 
and filth, "My brother, I love you." 

The only creed needed in this world to save it to-day is the 
vital creed Jesus Christ preached, "Thou shalt love the Lord 



THE SUCCESS OF THE SALVATION ARMY. 75 

thy God with all thy heart, thy neighbor as thyself." And that 
is all the creed of the Salvation Army. What a lesson to the 
church to-day raking up the ashes of the dead past and trying to 
fan the embers to a flame, that from it they may light again 
martyr fires! 

The church should understand too, from the army's methods, 
that the way to reach the masses is to go for them. What is the 
matter with our churches? They are afraid of disturbing their 
ancestors. I read an editorial the other day about a railroad built in 
Jerusalem and of the mourning over the desecration of the Holy 
Land by the engine. You would have thought the Emperor of 
China wrote it. They have kept the steam engine out of China 
for centuries because it would disturb the supposed sanctity of 
the soil. As though those old hills in Palestine were God's tem- 
ple only! Jesus said, ^'Neither at Jerusalem or these mountains 
is to be the place where God shall dwell, but he is to dwell in the 
hearts of men." You might run a steam engine all over Pales- 
tine, plant it all in foreign fruits and desecrate every spot there 
and Christianity will be just as glorious. 

FBOM DITCH AND GUTTEB. 

If the church does not do the work of saving the world Gx>d 
will raise up a church from the ditch and gutter — ^that has noth- 
ing to do with the established church — that wull do the work He 
came into the world to do. Some of our good brethren met the 
other day in congress and discussed the question whether a cer- 
tain ritual should read, **He descended into hell" or **went down 
into hell." Think of bringing the scholarship of the world to 
bear on a question like that while the world outside is literally 
tumbling into hell! Whether they "descend" or "go down into" 
— they get there! 

A lady once sat at a table beside a distinguished scientist, sup- 
posed to be Prof. Huxley, and asked him if it was not a serious 
thing that the vicar should turn his face to the East in adminis- 
tering the sacrament. He said: "My dear madam, Sir John 



76 TEE SUCCESS OF TEE SALVATION ABMY, 

Herschel says that if there were a limitless sea between this 
planet and the nearest big star, and in sailing over it you should 
drop a pea at the end of every mile, it would take 10,000 ships 
of 600 tons burden each, each loaded to the water line with peas, 
to reach that star. Do you suppose that He who made such a 
universe really minds whether the vicar turns his face to the 
East or West, North or South ?' 

The Phillippine Islanders are a people who venerate sleep. 
They think it sacrilegious for a man to disturb another while he 
sleeps, especially if he steps over his sleeping body. I know 
churches that venerate the idea of sleeping, and if another man 
should step over them while they slept they would go into sacred 
spasms! And yet we think we are civilized and smile at those 
poor inhabitants of savage islands. 

The one serious hindrance to the future expansion of the Army 
is the Imperialism of Gen. Booth. There are signs of the end 
now appearing. This future is thoroughly unchristian and will 
be modified or the Army will cease to be a power. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Apparent Success of the Episcop ; Church. 

Apparently the only exception to the universal failure of Pro- 
testantism in New York is to be found in the Episcopal Church. 
While other branches of Protestantism have failed to hold the 
c^xidren born into their homes during the past decade, from the 
year 1885 to 1892, the Episcopal Church increased its member- 
ship from 30,000 to 39,000, in round numbers. That is to say, 
their net gain was about 9,000. This is a little more than the 
normal birth-rate of the membership, and while it is no great 
success, it stands as an oasis in the desert that calls for a partic- 
ular examination as to the causes. The causes, as set forth by 
an enthusiastic exponent of the church, in criticism of my state- 
ments, are as follows: 

EITUAIilSM. 

"That solemn, beautiful, dignified, sacred worship of God 
which is embodied in the ritual of the ancient church is denied 
to the devotees of Protestantism, hence men go to secret socie- 
ties, where they find at least an imitation of it. Again, the 
preaching function has been exalted to such a degree that the 
worship of God (apart from the sermon), which old-fashioned 
Christians regarded as the mo/st important and sacred part of 
the service, is now commonly called 'preliminary exercises!* 
Worship is made a mere side issue, and to hear a man talk is 
regarded as the motive for going to church. That being so, how 
can we expect a lawyer, who very often can make a more stir- 
ring speech in behalf of a ragged pickpocket than some preach- 
ers can in behalf of religion, or a drummer who extols his brand 
of soap with more eloquence than the average minister his doc- 



IB APPABmr success OF TEE EPlSCOFAt CBURCti, 

trine, how can we expect such men to go to church for the sake 
of sermons? Return to their places the divine liturgy,the solemn 
worship of God, and above all the Holy Sacraments which ope- 
rate on the soul not by man power, or rhetoric, or hero-worship, 
but by the action of the Holy Spirit. Give back to men the su- 
pernatural elements of Christianity that Protestantism has rob- 
bed them of, and they will go to church. In the words of an 
eminent Scotch Presbyterian divine: *Our pepole have been 
estranged through the weariness of preaching. Down with the 
pulpit and up with the Mass.* '* 

PHLLLTPS BEOOKS 

In answer to this criticism I would simply say, I do noft be- 
lieve that the ritual of the Episcopal Church in America, is a 
help; but I believe, upon the other hand, that it is in some ways 
a hindrance to the advancement of their cause. Canon Barrett 
of London, says, in so many words, that the ritual of the church 
is an impediment in the efforts to reach the miasses of the people; 
that the direct services, direct prayer and direct speech of the 
other denominations are more pov/erful weapons in reaching and 
holding the working people of England. The Episcopal Church 
was first in the field in America, controlled the legislatures, and 
controlled society, in a majority of the Colonies. It has failed 
to hold those States, and to-day occupies one of the subordinate 
positions, in point of membership, in the Protestant ranks in 
America, numbering, all told, about 500,000 adherents, in a total 
of 13,000,000. The ritual has been a positive hindrance in the 
way of the spread of the church and its work. What they have 
done they have done in spite of this, not because of it. Besides, 
my reverend critic evidently belongs to the school of the High 
Church, and this faction of the Episcopal faith has done little 
to build up the church, in my judgment, but has been a constant 
feeder of Roman Catholicism. The motto with which he closes 
— "Down with the pulpit and up with the Mass" — ^shows the 
tendency of his mind. The Episcopal Church in this country 



APPARENT SUCCESS OF TJSE EPISCOPAL CSTTRCM, 79 

has been powerful as its pulpit has been a power. One of the 
most powerful preachers that America has produced was Phil- 
lips Brooks. Does my reverend critic man to say that he could 
increase the power of the Episcopal Church by destroying the 
pulpit of such men as Brooks and hoisting the Mass instead? 
This is sacred nonsense. 

It seems to me that the reasons for the apparent success of 
the Episcopal Church in New York City are peculiarly local, 
and do not apply to the Church throughout the United States. 
It seems to me that there are three reasons for this success. 

THE POWEB OF MONEY- 

First, is the enormous money power concentrated within this 
church in the city of New York. It is said that Trinity corpora- 
tion alone has invested property worth $150,000,000. The entire 
valuation of all the property of other Protestant denominations 
in the city of New York does not reach $17,000,000. There are 
several Episcopal churches in the city whose annual budget of 
expenditures exceeds $50,000. This is a tremendous power. It 
has been possible with these enormous resources for the Episco- 
pal Church to go into new neighborhoods, buy a whole block, 
erec^ a palatial church without a member, build a magnificent 
school-house and parish-house, place la full organization of teach- 
ers and clergymen in charge, and in two years have a flourish- 
ing establishment. 

It seems to me, a second reason why this church has specially 
succeeded in New Y'ork is that its churches are well manned. 
While other Protestant denominations have adhered to the idea- 
of a one man ministry, the Episcopal Church has placed three, 
four, five men, in charge of each parish. From the exceedingly 
astute and scholarly Bishop, who presides over the diocese, down 
through its various ranks, their churches are superbly officered. 
They have recognized the fact that one man cannot do the work 
of ten. 



80 APPARENT SUCCESS OF THE EPISCOPAL GRURCHi 

Third, I believe they have succeeded because the church has 
recognized more fully and fairly the social aspects of Christian- 
ity. They have recognized the breadth of the Christianity of 
Christ in its application to the whole life of ma a, and here have 
placed themselves in touch with the spirit of the new life of the 
century. This cannot be said of the Episcopal Church gene- 
rally in the United States. It is true in Boston, it is true in New 
York. I do not know another great city of which so much can 
be said. Certainly no such statement applies to the church from 
the point of view of the nation. If you ask the question, is the 
Church of England, of which the Church of Am^erica is but a 
branch — if you ask the question, in other words, if the Episcopal 
Church is advancing or decaying, I would answer by quoting 
the words of Dr. Momerie, the representative of the Church of 
England at the World's Congress of Religions. Hear what he 
says upon the 

*' DECADENCE OF THE ENGLISH CHTJECH." 

* 'There is much in my church which I admire and love. Rs 
music, its architecture, many of its prayers, a few of its hymns, 
a little of its teachings, much of its practice, some of its associ- 
ations, connected as they have been with the great joys and sor- 
rows of life, the unselfish devotion of a large number of its cler- 
gy, these things are of inestimable value. But I am convinced 
that the good is being neutralized by the evil, and that there is 
a danger of both speedily perishing in one common catastrophe. 
The church is in imminent peril — all the more imminent because 
it is seldom recognized or suspected. In one of his humorous 
poems, Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of an old couple who had 
been accustomed for msany years to drive about in a *one-horse 
shay.' This carriage was constructed originally on am ingenious 
principal, so that every part should be just as strong as every 
other part. It was a sort of infallible chaise: there was not a 
weak point about it; it never seemed any the worse for wear; it 



APPABENT SUCCESS OF THE EPISCOPAL CEUBCH. 81 

looked as if it would last forever. But on one occasion, as it 
was being driven along in the usual fashion, it suddenly collap- 
sed — into dust. I am afraid that may be an emblem of what is 
in store for the Church of England. To superficial observers she 
appears prosperous and flourishing; but nevertheless the end 
may be near, and the end is near, unless the clergy can be 
awakened to a sense of the danger before it is too late. 

''Institutions, like organisms, must — if they would survive — 
adapt themselves to their environment. Want of adaptation is 
death. Human society is constantly changing, in its modes of 
thought, in its experiences, in its needs. And unless the church 
changes correspondingly she will be destroyed — destroyed by the 
very society which she claims to mould. But the clergy, with 
few exceptions, persistently refuses to recognize this necessity 
for adaptation. The m.odern priest, as a rule, expects as much 
credulity on the part of his devotees as did the old medicine-men 
and rain-makers. He talks about miracles — Gadarene pigs and 
what not — as he might have done at a time when natural law 
bad never been heard of; when every one believed, not in the 
uniformity, but in the irregularity of nature. He talks about 
inspiration and revelation as if he did not know that much of the 
teaching of the Bible had been equalled, and even surpassed, in 
other sacred literatures, and that some of the sayings of Christ 
Himself — including even the golden rule — had been anticipated 
by 'pagans' hundreds of years before the Christian era. The 
dogmas of orthodoxy were formulated in the third or fourth 
century, and yet he goes on repeating these antiquated shibbo- 
leths as if he were not aware that since the days of St. Augus- 
tine men's views of the universe, and, therefore, of the God of 
the universe, had been revolutionized. Change and progress are 
hateful to the clerical mind. Instead of aiding development, the 
clergy have eternally hampered and opposed it. Instead of lead- 
ing the race, it has been their mournful prerogative to lag 
behind. The majority of them are now centuries in the rear. 
And the consequence is that men are beginning to ask them- 



82 AFFABENT SUCCESS OF TEE EFISCOFAL CHUBCH, 

selves if they might not dispense with the 'benefit of clergy/ if 
they would not be better off without a church than with it? 

A DECLINING MINISTRY. 

"The influence of the priesthood is everywhere on the wane. 
Fashion, no doubt, continues to lend it a certain precarious sup- 
port. 

*At church on Sunday to attend 

Will serve to keep the world your friend.' 

But going to church is mo longer absolutely indispensable. The 
friendship of the world may be obtained without it. Even the 
*smart' people are becoming lax in their religious observances. 
I remember a few years ago it was proposed in convocation to 
pass a resolution condemning *the desecration of the Sabbath,* 
which was then becoming so common in society. But the Bishop 
of London, with touching frankness, said that they might as 
well save themselves the trouble, as nobody would pay attention 
to the resolution if they did pass it. And over the cultured por- 
tion of the community the influence of the Church is already 
almost nil. How many clever persons do you know who are in 
the habit of looking to their clergymen for instruction? Even 
the scholarly clergy — those who are thoroughly acquainted with 
Hebrew and with the Fathers — even they, with few exceptions, 
are quite out of touch with modern thought. And every year 
their ranks are recruited from a lower intellectual class, so that 
the small amount of influence which the clergy still retain is 
continually becoming smaller. 

"For the last thirty or forty years the intellectual attainments 
of candidates for Orders have been steadily on the decline. The 
Church is ceasing to attract young men of conspicuous ability. 
At the English universities in the olden times the best men usu- 
ally went into Orders; but what was formerly the rule is now 
the exception. This is a fact which it is idle to attempt to dis- 



APPABENT 8UGGES8 OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 83 

pute. Every student at Oxford and Cambridge is acquainted 
with it. It can be proved to demonsitration by comparing the 
ordination lists of to-d-ay with those of half a century ago. It 
has been acknowledged and deplored by the Bishops themselves. 
In 1861, Dr. Temple, then head-master of Rugby, wrote a re- 
markable letter to Dr. T'ait, who was at that time Bishop of 
London. This letter was called forth by the fact that Dr. Tem- 
ple, in common with other contributors to the *Essays and Re- 
views,' had been severely censured by the Bishops in convoca- 
tion. 'Many years ago,' he said, 'your lordship urged us from 
the university pulpit to undertake the critical study of the Bible. 
You said it was a dangerous study, but indispensable. You de- 
scribed its difficulties, and those who listened to you must have 
felt a confidence that, if they took your advice, you at any rate 
would never join in treating them unjustly if their study had 
brought with it the difficulties you described.. To tell a man to 
study, and yet bid him under heavy penalties come to the same 
conclusions as those who have not studied, is to mock him. If 
the conclusions are prescribed the study is precluded. Freedom 
plainly implies the widest possible toleration. I admit that tole- 
ration must have limits, or the church would fall to pieces. But 
the student has a right to claim, first, that those limits should be 
known beforehand and contained in formularies within his own 
reach, not locked up in the breasts of certain of his brethren; 
secondly, that his having transgressed them should de decided 
after fair, open trial by men practised in such decisions. Instead 
of that what do we see? A set of men publish a book contain- 
ing the results of their study and thought, which — rightly or 
wrongly — they believe to be within the limits traced out by the 
formularies. Suddenly, without any warning that they are on 
their trail, without any opportunity given for explanation or de- 
fense, assuredly without any proof that they have really trans- 
gressed the limits prescribed, the whole Bench of Bishops join 
in inflicting a severe censure and in insinuating that they are 
dishonest men. How on earth is any study to be pursued under 



84 APPARENT SUCCESS OF THE EPISCOPAL CBUBCJff. 

such treatment as this? You complain that young men of abil- 
ity will not take Orders. How can you expect it when this is 
what befalls any one who does not think as you do/ 

MR. GLADSTONE. 

"The fact that the ablest men have ceased to go into Orders 
received a curious kind of indirect confirmation in a speech made 
by Mr. Gladstone at the Jubilee of Trinity College, Glenalmond, 
in October, 1891. *The charge that the clergy are falling be- 
hind in the intellectual race,' he said, *I believe to be a most in- 
accurate, most untrue, and most unjust aspersion. You may 
judge of the character of a body in part by the names of those 
who die in its ranks. I will name five men who have died in tha 
ranks of the British clergy within the last two years. One of 
these was Bishop Lightfoot, and one Dr. Liddon; one was Dean 
Church; one was Archbishop Magee;and the fifth, a much young- 
er man, whose fame was almost entirely confined to the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, Mr. Aubrey Moore. Now I say that body is 
an illustrious body from whose ranks, within less than two 
years, five such men can be numbered as having ceased to be.' 
True. But to know whether that body is or is not degenerating, 
we must inquire by whom the dead are to be succeeded. The 
fact that the English army was once led by a Marlborough and 
a Wellington would not ensure for it victory to-day. And since 
young men of ability are no longer taking Orders, it follows that 
•eventually there will be no worthy successors of the eminent 
clergymen who have gone. 

"All the while laymen are being better educated; they are 
reading more widely and thinking more deeply. They are going 
up-hill as fast as the clergy are going down. The intellectual 
advances of the laity render the clergy less and less capable of 
understanding them, so that the want of adaptation between 
society and the church is ever on the increase; and want of 
adaptation is death. There is no possibility of evading this law. 
Ridicule will not alter it; it is not to be laughed out of existence. 



APPARENT SUCCESS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHUBCH. 85 

Reasaning will not change it; it is not to be argued away. For 
a while, no doubt, it may be ignored; it may seemingly be dis- 
obeyed with imi)unity; but the effects of the disobedience are 
only accumulating for a more 'terrible catastrophe in the end. 
Unless the Church of England undergoes a radical change, she 
will practically cease to exist. She will appeal exclusively to 
the intellectual dregs of the community, and could only there- 
fore in bitterest irony be called a National Church." 



CHAPTER IX. 
The Strength of Roman Catholicism. 

Does Roman Catholicism hold to-day any possible solution for 
the failure of Protestantism in New York? The faithful priest 
of Rome will answer as a matter of course in the affirmative. 

For my own part I gladly grant to the Roman Catholic Church 
the full measure of praise due for their good work in New York. 
I rejoice in much they have done. Before we look at the painful 
facts let us present the bright ones. 

In the Roman Catholic Church there has been a degree of pro- 
gress, a revolutionary change of front, within the past few years, 
which has been nothing short of a miracle. We are profoundly 
interested in their affairs, Protestants tlhough we are. 

We are interested because they represent the majority of the 
Christian world, numbering Christian nations numerically. The 
Roman Catholics embrace something like 200,000,000 of the in- 
habitants of Christendom, and whatever their errors in the past 
have been they are our brethren in Christ. Whatever may be 
the gulf that separates us to-day from them, the development of 
Christianity in the future will have no history that will not have 
as part of its fundamental development the story of this great 
power, which we have called the Roman Catholic Church. It 
has stood the assault of centuries — the assaults of men within 
the church and without. 

In forming an estimate of other religions we need to be care- 
ful. All religions have in them elements of the divine. Whether 
it is the religion of the savage that bows down before a miser- 
able image in the heart of the wilds of an unexplored forest, 
Vv^hether the Chinaman before his idol in China, or the Japanese 
in Japan — wherever you find man looking up with inquiring 
heart after God — you are walking on holy ground, and there wil! 



THE STEENQTH OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM. 87 

be found imbedded in that religion a something that you must 
respect — something of the divine. It is a fact that most o'f us 
have our denominational differences to-day because of our edu- 
cation. I am a Baptist because my father was. You are a Me- 
thodist because your father was. If my father had been a Ro- 
man Catholic, I have not the slightest doubt I would be a Catho- 
lic to-day. 

THE CATHOLICS IN AMEEICA. 

We are interested and tremendously so in the development of 
Catholicism in America because America holds in one sense the 
key to history. Mr. Gladstone, while he represents the high mark 
of English liberalism, while he is an intense Englishman in every- 
thing, say sthat the next century is to place the crown of empire of 
the world on the brow of America, and he figures out that you 
are to have on this continent 365,000,000 of inhabitants at the 
close of the century now about to dawn upon us. Whatever we 
may do at present about emigration, we are destined to receive 
from all nations of the earth a continued strf^am of life, seeking 
a wider and freer outlook. 

Is the Catholic Church in America to be an enemy to be crush- 
ed, or can it be made an ally in the work of saving the world? 

In forming conditions of judgment on a question like this you 
musit take the sum total of their influence. Bob Burdette gives 
an illustration of the Avrong tendency in this direction when he 
commented the other day on a Unitarian's report of the religious 
condition of Japan. The Unitarian said that when he asked a 
Japanese what he thought of the converts of evangelical church- 
es in that section of heathendom he replied "with a meaning 
smile," Burdette says, "That is information from heaunuarters.'- 
If you want to find out about Christian converts go to the heath- 
en for information. If you want to find out about the Demo- 
cratic party ask the Republican. If you want to find out about 
the Methodists go to the Baptists. If you want to find out the 
facts about a man straight from the very fountain head, always 



88 TEE STRENGTH OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM. 

go to the eneray of the man about whom you want your infor- 
mation, and you are certain to get it. It would not he fair if we 
consulted only those sources of information about Ca;tholicism. 
I'ox's book of Martyr's has doubtless served its purpose in 
freeing the human conscience from the tyranny of Rome. But 
the mild insanity that identifies the scarlet woman of the Apoca- 
lypse with the Pope of Rome surely has no serious mission to 
perform in the nineteenth century. 

THE NEW CENSUS. 

The census of 1890 records the names of 380,000 -adherents of 
the Roman Catholic Church in New York. The Christian ,world 
should rejoice in this measure of success in any church in a city 
whose dominant spirit is hostile to all religion. 

Nine-tenths of our doctrinal principles are identical with the 
Catholics; the one- tenth on which we differ is the question of 
ecclesiastical machinery. And Rome herself is coming to de- 
mocracy, and when she agrees to the great fundamental princi- 
ples of a democratic government in the State she will come at 
last to the other, for the State yields the basis on which the 
church will be built in the future. 

The Church of Rome in this city is doing a work for the for- 
eign masses we are not doing. This town could not be held from 
the devil for twenty-four hours if it were not for the power of 
the Catholic priesthood. You would have to turn your guns into 
these streets and sweep them with grape and canister without 
them. What have we done to reach these people? Nothing. 
What are we going to do? Nothing. Who are doing that work? 
The Jewish rabbis and the Catholic priests. If they do not do it, 
it is not done. If you take those forces away, you have left the 
people absolutely in darkness. Il that is a fact, we must recog- 
nize it, and that these forc^es are being utilized fo-: good. 

I admire the wisdom and skill of the Catholic priesthood. They 
have more common sense than Protestant ministers. They are 
more skillful. They have longer heads. They know better how 



THE STRENGTH OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM. 89 

to grasp and hold a city. Go and look at their big churches here 
to-day. In my Western trips the biggest churches I see are the 
Catholic churches. They were the first in the town, before the 
other denominations thought of building, and the priests got the 
lots for nothing, too — long-headed men that look far into the 
future and seize their opportunities and hold on to them forever. 
While other churches lost their rights to title in this city, they 
had the sense to go to the Legislature and have their titles per- 
fected, while we w^ere asleep. They do not preach on Sunday 
and say to the people, "You can go to the devil during the week.'* 
They teach their people that what they preach on Sunday is to 
be put into life on Monday, and the priest can say things that 
have great power and influence in the political world. If Senator 
David B. Hill said, "Give m.e the saloons, and you can have the 
churches," he was talking about the Protestant churches, not 
the Catholic. Why? Because our Protestant churches are a 
disorganized mob. 

CHEISTIAN IS AS CHRISTIAN DOES. 

From Catholicism to-day we should learn the concrete annliea- 
tion of truth in everyday life. The question is, in fact, what a 
Christian does, not w^hat he professes. We have the best creed 
— the creed in the abstract — but Christian is what Christian 
does. I have been alarmed about some things in the Protestant 
world as I watched the progress of Rome. The Pope of Rome 
has show^ed, in this age, that he know^s the drift of the century; 
that he has adjusted the whole machinery of Rome to that drift, 
and that he has felt the pulse of the social age; that the masses 
are going to rule the world, and he is going to be the friend of 
the masses, and rule them. If you are going to keep up with 
Rome, you must know those facts as thoroughly as the Pope 
knows them to-day. AVe have the creed, but be careful that you 
put it into practice. Practice is what tells in the Christian world, 
not paper creeds or theory. 

Catholics are liberal givers. When Dr. McGlynn was turned 



90 TEE STBENGTE OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM, 

out of St. Stephen's Church, the collection amounted to $2,500 
on a single Sunday. There are no rich people in that parish — 
all poor people, but they are taught to give; it is part of their 
religion and life. If a Catholic dies, he remembers the church. 
A Presbyterian died the other day in New York. He was worth 
nearly a hundred millions. But the will he left was simply this: 
*'Lord have mercy on me and my wife, my son John and his wife, 
we four and no more! Amen." 

Inside of every Protestant denomination there are powers of 
wealth concentrated that if they were only poured into the 
church, as Rome has her wealth poured into her bosom, what a 
power we might be for good! Miss Drexel could give her $8,000,- 
000 in a single gift to educate the negroes and Indians, and we 
have only one or two men in our Protestant world that seem 
alive to the importance of the salvation of a world. 

Who runs the hospitals in this city to-day? The Catholics. 
We have a few other hospitals, but they do not sum up in the 
total. We have been mighty on creeds, but broken down when 
we came into life. Mighty are we in exploring the doctrine of 
Pauline faith, but when we came to the parable of the Good Sa- 
maritan we turned that over to the Catholics, whom we look 
down on with suspicion. 

I thank God to-day for the indications in the Catholic world 
of such progress as we see. I hail it with rejoicing, as one who 
loves Jesus. When He shall reign supreme He will bring many 
Catholics and many Protestants together. When that time 
comes, errors that now are strong will be eliminated in the pro- 
cess of development, and God will bring one out of many. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Decay of Romanism. 

The system of Romanism can hold no solution of the religious 
problem of our centres of life in America, for a very simple rea- 
son. Its decay has been in many respects more serious than the 
failure of Protestantism. 

Max Muller has declared, as the result of a life-study of all re- 
ligions: "The one universal characteristic of all religions is de- 
cay." This is the incontrovertible testimony of history. That is 
to say, forms die, creeds pass, rites and systems change, yet reli- 
gion remains the one eternal fact of humanity. If the Apostles 
should return to earth to-day and enter those churches that make 
the loudest boasts of being "Apostolic," they would not know 
how to behave. They would be lost in wonder at the elaborate 
ritual of the great Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. The 
Apostle Peter would be utterly at sea if he should attempt to 
join in a high mass at St. Peter's, Rome. 

Religion expresses itself in terms of the knowledge of the age. 
The evolution of religion is a simple historic fact. In no two 
countries of the human race does the religion which bears the 
same name mean the same thing. This is so, simply because the 
knowledge of the race grows v/ith each succeeding generation, 
and the expression of religion must adjust itself to this increase 
of knowledge, or perish in the resulting conflict. 

IMPEBIALISM. 

Now Romanism cannot possibly hold any solution of the reli- 
gious problem of modern New York, because the system is essen- 
tially ancient. The essence of Romanism is the principle of im- 
perialism. This principle was finally crystallized into the dogma 
of Papal Infallibility in 1870. Such a dogma was inevitable and 



92 THE DECA Y OF ROMANISM. 

strictly logical. Imperialism is the soil of the Roman system. It 
always has been, it always will be. When Romanism ceases to 
be imperialism, it ceases to be Romanism. The present Pope of 
Rome recently made overtures to the English Church for "Chris- 
tian Union." When an official of the Church of England asked 
Cardinal Vaughan, the Pope's representative in England, what 
must be the basis of this proposed union, the Cardinal promptly 
replied: ''Submission to the supremacy of the Pope." No other 
answer could have been given without Romanism stultifying the 
reason for its existence. 

The growth and the decay of the principle of Imperialism is 
the one great fact tha;t fills tiie volume of the history of man dur- 
ing the 3,000 years of our historic record. No one doubts that the 
development of the empire of the imperial ruler above the petty 
tribal kings and tyrants was a vast gain for the human race. 
Imperialism had its part to play in the evolution of the civiliza- 
tion of man. But the climax of the drama of empire is in the 
past. We are now rapidly approaching the day of the triumph 
of Democracy. Empires are the dung-heaps now out of which 

republics grow. 

eome's climax. 

The system of Romanism reached its highest development un- 
der Pope Innocent III., in the thirteenth century. It held its 
triumphant splendor for a hundred years. And then began the 
decay that has been steady and inexorable down to the present 
hour. This period of imperial splendor is followed by the great 
scandal of the three Popes, each claiming at the same time to be 
the only vice-gerent of God on earth, each denouncing the other 
as impostors and veritable sons of hell! This disgrace involved 
an immediate loss of prestige and power to the Papacy, from 
which it did not recover and never has recovered. The kings and 
princes of Europe made haste to build the defences to their 
thrones higher and stronger, and were ever afterward able to 
practically dictate their own terms to the wearer of the tiara. 
From this period dates the beginning of the emancipation of the 



THE DECAY OF ROMANISM. 93 

"temporal" from the "spiritual" power. And here begins the 
story of heresy and rebellion within the fold. In the foreground 
of this strange scene towers the colossal figure of John Wycliffe. 
They dug up his very bones and burned them for heresy, and 
scattered the ashes in the waters of a brook, that they might 
have no resting-place on the earth. The brook carried them to 
the sea, and the sea carried them round the world, ^nd circled 
the earth with the spirit of the dead martyr! 

The next blow which befell the imperialism of Rome was the 
pragmatic sanction in France which guaranteed the French 
Church a practical independence of the central power. It waa 
the beginning of Galilean liberties that h-as never since been 
abridged. 

Then followed the statutes of Provisors, of Premunire and of 
Mortmain, by which death-bed bequests and many other rich 
sources of Roman revenue were curtailed or abolished in Eng- 
land. These laws brought great financial and political damage 
to the Papacy. 

DEATH-CBY OF A GIANT. 

All this was to be followed by the thunder-peal of the Refor- 
mation of the sixteenth century, under the leadership of Martin 
Luther. One-half of Europe joined this great rebellion, and 
when, under the leadership of the reactionist enthusiasts of Loy- 
ola, Rome had recovered Bavaria, Bohemia, Hungary and Bel- 
gium, the storm of the French Revolution burst with resistless 
fury. Her priests were butchered, her property confiscated or 
destroyed, her proud dignitaries hurled to the dust, and the very 
chair of the Pope, for a time, shattered into splinters. After this 
storm had passed, and before the damages could be repaired, the 
Italian rebellions began to drench Italy in blood. One by one 
the fair provinces of the Papal power were wrested from the 
Vatican, until at last Victor Emmanuel sitood before the walls 
of Rome with united Italy at his back! As his victorious army 
sprung over the falling walls of the Empire of the Popes, they 
were followed by missionaries, distributing eart-loads of Pro- 



94 THE BEGAT OF BOMANISM. 

testant Bibles to the populace of Rome. There are to-day 25,000 
Diembers of Protestant Churches in Italy, and there are eleven 
of their churches in Rome itself, beneath the very shadow of St. 
Peter's. The dogma of Papal infallibility was promulgated upon 
the fall of Rome. Of course. It was natural. It was the death- 
cry of a giant. It meant the embalming of a principle that had 
fought its life out and died in the last ditch. 

The cause of this decay is not far to seek. The decline of the 
power of Papal Imperialism has been coincident with the growth 
of the principle of nationality. As England grew into conscious 
power as a nation and a national spirit began to incarnate itself 
in her citizenship the King of England was substituted for the 
Pope of Rome. The growth of the French nation and the con- 
sciousness of the part it was to play as a nation in human history 
forced from the Pope the concession of the rights of the Galilean 
Church. The growth of the spirit of nationality made the Ger- 
man people with their temperament the inevitable scene of the 
Reformation's Prologue. Rome lost Italy, the seat of her August 
Empire of the centuries, because the principle of Imperialism 
collided with the development of the spirit of Italian Nationality. 

AMEBICA A BOTTOMLESS WHIELPOOL. 

Likewise, in America, Romanism collided with the spirit of 
American nationality. The United States of America is the bot- 
tomless whirlpool in which millions of Roman Catholics have 
poured during the last generation, never to appear again! When 
they have reappeared it was through the baptism unto the new 
life of the most vigorous nationalism in the history of the world. 
Henceforth they are Americans! They are as dead to the prin- 
ciple of Roman Imperialism. Since 1820 we have received about 
17,000,000 immigrants. More than 10,000,000 of these were Ro- 
man Catholics, and yet with seventy years of growth and most 
prolific birth-rate of any of our classes of people, at the end of 
this period Romanism can only muster about 7,000,000 nominal 
adherents, counting population, men, women and children. 



THE DECAY OF B0MANI8M. 9S 

Oountin the children born of Roman Catholic parentage, the 
Catholics have lost at least 6,000,000 of their own members with- 
in the past two generations. It is no answer to say that the 
church has grown from a few hundred thousands to millions in 
this time. The point is, the Catholic population of this nation in 
1890, by the Federal census, was only about 6,000,000. It ought 
to have been 12,000,000 if they could only have held their own 
people. 

THEIR DECAY IN NEW TOEK. 

Take the city of New York and test the question. The foreign 
population of New York — that is, foreign-born and the children 
of the foreign-born, is eighty per cent, of the total. The Catholic 
population of the city by the census of 1890 is 380,000 — twenty 
per cent. ! By a careful examination of the sources of our immi- 
gration it will be found that at least fifty-four per cent, of it is 
Roman Catholic. This should give the Roman Catholic Church 
an aggregate of 972,000 in New York City. It actually is only 
380,000, showing a loss in New York alone of 592,000! Protes- 
tantism has not held its own in New York. The record of Ro- 
man Catholicism is even worse. 

Imperialism coming in conflict with the spirit of freedom goes 
down before it. Imperialism commands obedience. Freedom 
invites reason. When the pent-up manhood of the Old World 
Imperial traditionalism catches the spirit of American nation- 
ality it is lost forever to the Roman system. The conflict with 
democracy is a conflict with the conquering power of the ages. 
The claim of an extraneous mechanical "Authority" from on 
high has been the secret of every tyranny that has ever oppress- 
ed man. Men have begun to see this clearly at last. The tyrants 
who ruled Egypt claimed divine authority to rale wrongly. So 
the rulers of ancient India; so did the Caesars; so did the Bour- 
bons in France . This day is happily past in the history of the 
advanced nations of the world. The survival of the Imperialism 
of Rome, even in its aittenuated form is an anachronism. The 
rights of oflace everywhere yield to the rights of man. Trium- 



96 THE DECAY OF BOMANISM. 

phant Demos conquers the world, and the empire is but the pre- 
lude to the republic. 

Another potent cause of the decay of Romanism in America 
is the loss of control over child life, incident to the establishment 
and maintenance of the public schools. 

CHILDHOOD AND BELIGION. 

Childhood is the hour of religious training. It is the real basis 
of all the differences of sect and cult. Our religious bias is cre- 
ated for us in the growth of the fibre of the child mind. Even 
when reason has developed its powers, these very powers will be 
prostituted to the defense of, rather than used for, the destruc- 
tion of that bias. Some negroes taught my little boy to believe 
in ghosts. I tried to clear his mind of this superstition when he 
grew a little older. He would have none of my explanations. I 
told him it was utterly absurd; that there was no such thing as 
a ghost. In reply he asked me in the utmost amazement: 
"What! Don't you believe any ghosts?" I told him emphati- 
cally not. 

"What I'* he exclaimed with deep seriousness, "Not even in the 
Holy Ghost V" 

Is it any wonder that a distinguished Roman Catholic bishop 
should say, "Give me the mind of a child until he is seven years 
old and you can have him the rest of his life." This is peculiarly 
the strength and the weakness of the Roman system. The sac- 
erdotal conception of marriage,so strongly insisted upon,is based 
upon the absolute necessity of controlling the offspring of the 
union. The institution of civic marriage was a blow at tTie very 
heart of the whole scheme of Roman Imperialism. 

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

The energy of the Roman hierarchy in America has been given 
to the school problem of necessity. As the adult population 
from the Catholic countries of the Old World has reached Amer- 
ica, it has melted by millions into the stream of American na- 



THE BEGAT OF B0MANI8M. 97 

tional life and spirit before their very eyes. And the priesthood 
has been utterly powerless to prevent this. The only possible 
remedy lay in the training of the child-mind in the ideals of Im- 
perialism as they grew in power in the native air of the freedom 
of the republic. Hence the gigantic effort in their poverty to 
build a complete system of parochial school that should cripple, 
at least, the influence and power of the schools of the republic. 
This effort has been only partially successful. It is sure to fail 
completely unless the hierarchy shall develop within the imme- 
diate future influence suflacient to divide the funds of the public 
treasury and obtain State support of their sectarian establish- 
ments. In the very nature of the republic, such an effort, seri- 
ously prosecuted, would mean in the end civil war, for the basis 
of the nation to-day is its system of universal education linked 
with universal suffrage. 

Romanism in America has therefore received its most serious 
blow from the American public school. 

The two ideals of education involved are utterly irrecsoncilable. 
They cannot live on the same soil. 

THE PAEOCHIAL IDEAL. 

What is the ideal of Romanism? If I understand it — some- 
thing like this: The supreme importance of the catechism, above 
all literature, art, science, study, culture, abstract or profession- 
al. That knowledge is a dangerous power whose sources should 
be guarded by the sternest repressive measures if necessary, that 
the human mind shall receive only that which is approved by 
duly established "authority." That Obedience and Innocence 
rather than Reason and Character are the goals of culture. 
That "secular education," meaning education without the cate- 
chism, is immoral and injurious, and therefore worse than igno- 
rance though it may involve the grossest superstitions. 

THE STATE IDEAL. 

Upon the other hand what is the ideal of the free public school? 
That the thing of supreme importance is the training of the 



98 THE DECAY OF ROMANISM, 

child's mind to its highest possible powers, leaving the question 
of religious training to the home and the church. That know- 
ledge is power with freedom and light. That men are free only 
as they know the truth. That truth is an attribute of God, and 
to teach truth is to teach God. That therefore all the education 
in imparting truth is of itself a sacred function. That truth is 
the one authority and needs no indorsement from its mechanical 
guardians and that no amount of "authority" can make a lie 
true. That obedience and innocence are but steps in the growth 
of man, that the goal of life is Reason and Character. That 
ignorance is itself the most fertile source of all crime and im- 
morality. That universal education is an absotute necessity to 
the life of a nation whose sovereignty rests on universal suff- 
rage, and that the State only, is able and willing to give this uni- 
versal culture and therefore it will brook no rival. 

The conflict between these two ideals is irrepressible. They 
cannot both be true. They cannot both survive in the struggle 
of our national life to incarnate itself in its perfected form. No 
man whose mind is unobscured by sectarian fog can believe for 
one moment that the State will now yield this solemn obligation 
to defend its own life. No church is willing or able to give uni- 
versal education to a people. But one church, the Roman Catho- 
lic, has ever had the opportunity in having absolute control of 
the whole population of a nation. What did Rome do with this 
opportunity? Ask the republics of South America that grope in 
the darkness of an ignorance well-nigh universal. Ask France 
if her people were given universal culture until the new State 
undertook it. Ask Spain the pioneer of New Worlds in the great 
centuries of the past, ever faithful to Rome, and her ignorant 
populace will not be slow in giving an emphatic negative. Ask 
Italy the mother of art and letters, and her millions of ignorant 
people in their stammering answer mock the glory of her past. 

Tne American nation is bound to maintain her scheme of uni- 
versal culture to insure her internal peace. Our task is an 
unique one in history. We must form an amalgam of all the 



THE DECAY OF ROMANISM. 99 

sects, cults, creeds, races, and nationalities of the earth. The 
public school is the patriotic furnace in which this bleeding of 
national character is made. Sectarian schools perpetuate the 
prejudices and differences of our people. To encourage them 
even would be suicidal for the state. 

THE child's BLRTHRIGHT. 

An education being the birthright of every child the state is 
the only power clothed with authority to protect the child from 
the brute instincts of unfaithful parentage. The period of in- 
fancy in man is the longest by far of all universal life. It lasts 
about twenty-one years. This prolonged period of infancy is the 
basis of the human soul. It is the one thing that differentiates 
man from the animal world by a fathomless chasm. Here lies 
the secret of humanity. The fact of infancy entitles every child 
to training. To this end was he born a man and not a brute. 
The state must guarantee this birthright by its universal and 
incontestible power — no parent or church should be allowed the 
right to infringe upon this national right, abridge or destroy it. 

If you would know the future of this nation look into the faces 
of the 13,000,000 school children. The sitate that could abandon 
these marching hosts of posterity to the whim of priest or private 
exploitation would be guilty of high treason against humanity. 

The best police power that the state can employ is knowledge 
and true culture. Ignorance is the fertile mother of vice, crime 
and pauperism. The state best protects itself in teaching the 
truths of history, economics, sociology, hygiene and philosophy. 

THE STATE ONLY CAN TEACH HISTOBY. 

The free brains of free children is the noblest defense with 
any nation ever produced. Invulnerable and united within, the 
nation is yet to be born who could conquer them. Republics have 
fallen because their citizenship was ignorant and in their igno- 
rance they fell an easy prey to demagogues and tyrants. The 
public schools is where the citizen king prepares himself for his 

iLofC. 



100 THE DECAY OF ROMANISM, 

throne. The truth only can make a man free. The state only 
can teach truth without sectarian bias, for the state in exclusive 
of all sects and the state only can be independent in the state- 
ment of the truths of hisftory. Any State, which undertakes 
that solemn duty will give only one side and suppresses the other. 
Read the following account of the reign of the Tudors contained 
in a history taught in Roman Catholic parochial schools: 

"To make converts. Catholicity has ever appealed to reason; 
Protestantism, like Mohammedanism, to force and violence. In 
England and Scotland Protestantism w^as forced upon the people 
by fines, imprisonment and death; in Germany and Prussia, Swe- 
den and Norway, the same. In America the Puritans acted in 
like manner." 

Now I would not forget the infamies of Protestant history. 
There are some dark pages in our record. There were bloody 
persecutions in the Old World — even Martin Luther was not 
guiltless. John Calvin consented to the burning of Servetus. 
Our Puritan ajucestors in New England fell first on their knees 
and then on the Aborigines, and afterwards made it warm for 
the "witches." Episcopalians whipped the Baptist, imprisoned 
and banished them in the early history of Virginia. But the 
trouble with this remarkable book is that while many of these 
facts are detailed upon, the inexpressible horrors of the savage 
reign of "Bloody Mary" in England are not mentioned! 

And how utterly false is the statement "Catholicity has ever 
appealed to reason." Read the hellish edict under which Alva 
marched into the Netherlands in 1550 as a single illustration. 

"No one," said the edict, "shall print, write, copy, keep, con- 
ceal, sell, buy or give in churches, streets, or other places, any 
book or writing made by Martin Luther, John Eoolampedius, 
Ulrich Zwinglius, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, or other heretics 

reprobated by the Holy Church; nor break nor otherwise 

injure the images of the Holy Virgin or canonize saints; 

nor in his house hold conventicles or illegal gatherings, or be 
present at such in which the adherents of the above-mentioned 



THEIDECAT OF ROMANISM. 101 

heretics teach, baptize, and form conspiraces against the Holy 

Church and the general welfare Moreover, we forbid," 

continues the edict, "all lay persons to converse or dispute con- 
cerning the Holy Scripture, openly or secretly, especially on any 
doubtful or difficult matter, or to read, teach, or expound the 
Scriptures, unless they have duly studied theology and been 
approved by some renowned university; or to preach se- 
cretly or openly, or to entertain any lof the opinions of the above- 
mentioned heretics ; on pain, should any one be found to 

have contravened any of the points above-mentioned, as pertur- 
bators of our state and of the general quiet to be punished in the 
following manner." 

And what were these penalties ? The men were to die by the 
sword and the women to be buried alive if they should recant 
and did not persist in their errors. If thpy refused to recant and 
persisted, then they were to be burned alive, and all their prop- 
erty confiscated. Any one who failed to betray a suspective 
lodged or entertained such, or furnished with food, fire or cloth- 
ing, were liable to the same fate. 

Armed with this decree of hell, Alva marched his army in the 
Netherlands, and in six years executed, according to its provi- 
sions, 18,000 human beings, besides the hosts slain in battle! No, 
it will not do to allow any sect to teach history. The state only 
is fit to take the child by the hand, lead him through its centuries 
of darkness and tears and suffering, and teach him to respect 
the opinions of his opponent, and in due humility for the past, 
love his neighbor, while he differs from him in politics or religion. 

To teach history is to trace the footprints of God through the 
centuries. 

To teach science is to unfold the laws of God. The true scien- 
tific teacher is filled with divine enthusiasm. It is said that Pro- 
fessor Farrar, who occupied the chair of natural philosophy at 
Harvard University, two-thirds of a century ago, was a man 
possessed of this enthusiasm for his work and beloved by his 
pupils, whom he inspired with something of his own spirit. 



102 TEE BEGAT OF ROMANISM, 

One day the class entered the lecture-room and found the pro- 
fessor walking backwards and forwards, with kindled eye and 
working face, holding a ball in his hands. Presently he stopped 
and confronted the class and exclaimed, suiting the action to the 
word: 

"I toss this ball into the air; the earth rises up to meet it, and 
the stars bow down to do it reverence." 

The teaching of philosophy is likewise a sacred function. 
Thought is the witness of God in man. The true thinker is the 
only true Catholic. In thought man becomes one with the Infi- 
nite and the Universal. 

A FATAIi COLIilSION. 

On encountering this ideal of education entrenched in the very 
inner fortress of the government of the United States, Roman- 
ism with its medieval ideal has met with a fatal collision. It has 
encountered an absolutely new force in history. It has collided 
with the van guard of that progress of the century that is to 
conquer humanity in the twentieth century. It is a collision with 
the stars in their courses, with light, with science, with history. 

What are some of the results? 

The practical defeat of the parochial scheme is ^already ac- 
knowledged by the wisest of the hierarchy. The mission of ad- 
justment and reconciliation of Siatolli in America means this 
among other things. Millions of hard-earned dollars of Catholic 
money have been sunk in weak parochial schools that must per- 
ish before the advance of the public system, unless the school 
fund is divided in the interests of sectarianism. Such a division 
cannot be accomplished in the nation without a civil war. It is 
the dream of a fool. 

The public school with each succeeding year becomes more and 
more popular with the whole people. Hundreds of thousands of 
the most intelligent Catholics are its warmest supporters, and a 
truly universal education is the certain destiny of our people. 
Romanism as a system has lost millions of adherents in this lib- 



THE DECAY OF ROMANISM, 103 

eralizing, broadening process of thought and culture. Their peo- 
ple have learned to think for themselves. As men grow to con- 
scious power, Obedience must yield to Reason. I command my 
c^hild now, but soon he will grow into the consciousness of his 
own freedom, and I must put my arms about his and say, "Come 
my boy, let us reason together." In the childhood of the race 
the official church might comm-and with good results for untu- 
tored man. But the race draws near to its conscious powers of a 
full grown manhood. Command must yield to persuasion. 

The day of authority for truth is gone. The day of truth only 
for authority is here. 



CHAPTER XL 
Qoody=Qoodism and the Scourge of Christ, 

The corruption of the modern city is a threat against the foun- 
dations of social order.. The municipal record of New York dur- 
ing the past thirty years has been a nightmare of civilization. 
But it has not disturbed the slumber of the Protestant churches. 
It has not even disturbed seriously its individual ministers until 
the last few years. The Gospel of Jesus Christ in New York has 
been weakly and ineffectually presented because it has not been 
preached in its fullness and power. Jesus Christ, on one occa- 
sion in His life, took a scourge of cords and cast out of the Tem- 
ple the sheep and the oxen, poured out the changer's money and 
overturned their tables. This is a most remarkable scene in the 
history of the ministry of Christ. It is a scene in which we be- 
hold the indignation of Jesus. So vigorous is this expression 
that the result is physical violence. To some minds of to-day 
such a scene in the life of Jesus is an impossibility. They refuse 
to believe in such a Christ, and these are the people who insist 
that they have the last word from Christ to the world. The 
trouble is that they have looked only at one aspect of the life of 
Jesus. He is gentle. He is loving. He is tender. He weeps, and 
yet deliberately makes a scourge of cords and with physical vio- 
lence drives from the Temple those who were desecrating His 
Father's house and with physical violence overturns their tables. 
Christ is Christianity. Jesus said, **I am the way." 

What does this scene in the life of Jesus, directly in the line of 
His ministry, teach? 

Certainly two things. 

There is an hour for Christianity to wield the lash and use the 
knife. There is a time, in other words, for all things. There is 



G00DT-G00DI8M AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. 105 

a time for gentleness and tenderness and love. There is a time 
for wrath and indignation and for overturning. There is a time 
to laugh, there is a time to weep; there is a time to sing, a time 
to pray, a time to fight. The music of life is not made on a single 
string. There are other elements than the gentle and soothing, 
which enter into the essentials of a rounded, active life. It is so 
in the individual, in society and in the church. 

In the life of every man there are times for tenderness and 
Jove; there are times for the assertion of the sterner elements of 
life and the assertion of wrath and indignation at the proper 
time, as essential to the world's welfare, to the salvation and 
happiness of mankind, as the introduction and maintenance of 
the gentler and sweeter elements. No man can live a normal 
life in this world and do his duty, endowed even with moderate 
talents, without being confronted with hours in which the soul 
must rise in all the power of righteous indignation and assert in 
all their elemental power the forces of anger and of war. 

A TIME FOR EIGHTEOTJS WEATH. 

In the life of society there are times when the community 
must rise in indignation and rid itself of pestilence. There are 
times in the life of a community in which the seeds of joy and 
of love and of gentleness can be sowed and cultivated. But 
there are hours when, with flame and axe those who have the 
good of society at heart must go forth and burn and strike down 
and remove if the people are to be saved from contagion and 
death. So in the history of the church there are hours in which 
the gospel of joy and of peace and of loving kindness is preach- 
ed and should be preached, and there are other hours in which 
the wrath and indignation of truth and Christ must be preached. 
It is useless to say that in such an hour light wUl overcome dark- 
nesSjgentleness will overcome violence. Jesus Christ did not find 
it so. His disciples would do well to follow Him. There have been 
hours in almost every century of the history of the church in 
which there was absolute call for righteous wrath, and when 



106 GOODY-GOOmSM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. 

only such forces were adequate to the salvation of the church 
and of the people . 

What could have saved the church in the days of Martin Lu- 
ther save the violence which resulted in the Protestant estab- 
lishment and in the purification of the Catholic Church? There 
could be no compromise with the corruption that had grown up 
within the body of Roman Catholicism. Tetzel, the chief expo- 
nent of the doctrine of indulgence, preached in the ear of Luther. 
"Indulgences," said he, "are the most precious and sublime of 
God's gifts. This cross (pointing to the red cross) has as much 
efficacy as the cross of Jesus Christ. Draw near, and I will give 
you letters duly sealed by which even the sins you shall here- 
after desire to commit shall be forgiven you. I would not ex- 
change my privileges for those of St. Peter in heaven, for I have 
saved more souls with my indulgences than he with his sermons. 
There is no sin so great that the indulgence cannot reach it. Let 
him only pay largely, and it shall be forgiven him. Even repent- 
ance is not indispensable." 

If any man doubts that this be a true statement of the preach- 
ing of a duly accredited delegate froon the highest Catholic au- 
thority in his age, let him refer to the words of Pope Adrian, 
successor to Leo X., crowned in 1522, when Germany was ablaze 
with Lutheranism. Through his legate the Pope declared at the 
diet of Nuremberg, summoned to deal with Luther, that "these 
disorders had sprung from the sins of men, more especially from 
the sins of priests and prelates. Even in the holy chair," said he, 
"miany horrible crimes have been committed. The contagious 
disease, spreading from the head to the members, from the Pope 
to lesser prelates, has spread far and wide, so that scarcely any 
one is found who does right and is free from infection." Con- 
fronted with such a situation, can say sane man maintain that 
it was the duty of Martin Luther to remain quiet and to preach 
the simple gospel of love and gentleness, of good feeling to friends 
and enemies inside the church and outside? No; there was an 
ho>ur in which the honest soul of the reformer cried in hot indig- 



GOODY'OOODISM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. 107 

nation, "In the name of Jesus, I will endure it no longer!" and 
the issue of battle was joined. There is a time to pray. There 
is a time to fight. 

THE TEBEOES OF DEVOTED LOVE. 

True love in Christ has its terrible hours in such a world. 
There are aspects of love beyond the mere expression of tender- 
ness and of kindly feeling. Love has its hours of the terrible 
and of the sublime, when death is preferable to dishonor, and 
when violence is to be desired above the baser things that come 
with submission. A Virginius could kill his own child for love's 
sake, and we cannot say that the awful deed of such a father 
transcended the limits of the real expression of a father's love. 
Let us remember that Jesus was not only capable of anger, but 
that He was angry. If this be so, love living in this world must 
be confronted with hours in which wrath and indignation rule 
supreme. It cannot be otherwise. The love which filled the soul 
of Christ was a consuming fire, and before it evil must be burned 
up. 

We are told that His baptism was the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost and of fire. Upon more than one occasion in His life we 
are told that He wds angry. He said Himself that He came to 
bring not peace, but a sword. Such scenes in the life of Jesus, 
such utterances from his lips, cannot be reconciled with the sen- 
timental slush of a certain school of Christianity which contin- 
ues to cry "peace, peace," when there is no peace, when there 
can be no peace with the forces of hell. There is a large amount 
of unadulterated hypocrisy in the cry for the gentleness of the 
Gospel in this hour. It will be found in scores of oases to ema- 
nate from men who hate the Gospel of Christ with all their soul 
and who cry for the gentleness and its sweetness because they 
feel the touch of the sword of Christ, of His truth and His in- 
dignation and His anger in their inmost souls. 

Jesus sacrificed Himself. Christianity means the sacrifice of 
self. If we would be the diseiples of Christ, we must be willing 



108 GOODT'GOOmSM AND THE 8C0UBGE OF CHRIST. 

to sacrifice self. The man who sacrifices himself must displease 
the selfish. It is an arraignment of them and of their life. One 
of the miost difficult sacrifices for the follower of Christ to make 
to-day is to count his reputation as nothing for Ohrisfs sake; is 
to be willing to be hissed and cursed and spit on by the people. 
The most difiicult sacrifice which Christianity demiands of its 
followers to-day is that they be willing to be unpopular. It is an 
easy thing to pander to a vitiated public sentiment. It is an easy 
thing to sell one's soul for this cheap applause. The follower of 
Chrisit who does it has betrayed his Master, has belied his pro- 
fession and is untrue to the first principles of his life — the sacri- 
fice of self. 

The world hated Jesus Christ. He was not a popular preacher 
in the sense that he pleased the powers that rule society. It is 
impossible for any man to live a true Christian life in this world, 
following Jesus in spirit and in truth and not be hated. Jesus 
says it Himself in so many words. Hear Him: "If ye were of 
the world, the world would love its own. But because ye are 
not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the 
world hateth you. They persecuted me. They will also perse- 
cute you. Yea, the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you shall 
think he offereth service unto God." 

THE SWOED OP CHBISTIANITY. 

There is and there must be of necessity >a point of contact with 
evil at which Christianity bursts into a consuming fiame. The 
Christianity, incapable of such a consummation,of such violence, 
if you please,is dead,not living. Nor is this in any wise inconsist- 
ent with the highest conception of Jesus. In His personality 
was blended the tenderest, the divinest love, with all the ele- 
ments of sternest, moral warfare. We see these elements com- 
bined frequently in the character of the stern warrior. Prince 
Henry, the brother of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, 
leads his army through Saxony, upon mission of death, and yet 



QOOBY-GOOmSM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST, 109 

he is careful of every field of grain. If a soldier stepped out of 
the direct road, the captain was punished. 

One day in the harvest season the prince saw the peasants 
hurrying to save their crops from an approaching storm. Im- 
mediately he had every horse taken from the baggage wagons 
and sent to the assistance of the farmers, who were amazed at 
this sympathy from a great general and an enemy. On one oc- 
casion 300 French officers were taken prisoners and brought be- 
fore him. He was indignant that they had been deprived of their 
swords and restored them at once. The wounded among the 
prisoners he cared for as carefully as if they belonged to his own 
army. When he learned that fifty of them were without money, 
he provided for them from his own purse, and at considerable 
inconvenience to himself. It is possible to fight for principle and 
truth and right, and in the very battle seek the salvation of those 
against whom we fight. 

And after these wars for righteous principles it happens, again 
and again in the history of the world, that those against whom 
we fight are brought to see that they were wrong, and that the 
battle was for their own good, even though they were blind and 
could not see it . We have a most striking example of this re- 
sult in a remarkable confession made by Arabi Pasha, the Egypt 
patriot. Twelve years ago he was the most powerful man in 
Egypt. He headed a rebellion, nominally, against the Khedive, 
but which Arabi insisted was really on the Khedive's behalf. 
He desired, he said, to deliver Egypt from foreign domination 
and preserve her for the Egyptians. He made a brave and des- 
perate fight, but he was beaten, and has since been living in re- 
tirement in Ceylon. He declares that his interest in Egypt and 
love for his country, are as intense <as ever. He declared re- 
cently that his whole life had been a mistake. He regretted op- 
posing the English occupation of Egypt. He declared that he 
had found the English had done for his country what he had 
hoped to do, but could never have succeeded in doing. 

"Not one of her own sons," said Arabi, "could have given 



110 GOODY'GOOBISM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST, 

Egypt the release from oppression and injustice and the good 
government which she now enjoys. All that I have fought and 
struggled to attain is accomplished. In my blindness I waa 
resisting the surest means of achieving my own aims. I was 
fighting for the liberation of my country. I am sorry now I did 
so, and I km glad for my country's sake I was defeated." So the 
men against whom Christianity wages its righteous war will in 
the end rejoice in their own defeat. Such a war is waged against 
them, not because we hate them, but because we love them. 

THE POLLUTION OF MODERN CITIES. 

So to-day the church of Christ in our centres of civic life is 
confronted with just such a crisis. The hour has come for right- 
eous indignaition. It is the hour for righteous wrath and for the 
action — yes, the violence of the Christ under the influence of that 
wrath. This is so: — 

Because of the tremendous growth and importance of these 
great modern centres of life. The city is the heart of modern 
civilization. It is the key to the century. It is the key to the 
future. The past fifty years have seen the city grow to domi- 
nate the world. It has drained the life from the rural districts 
and concentrated it at these nerve centres of the world. Here 
civilization has massed its numbers. The cities of the ancient 
world, before the fall of that world, were insignificant in com- 
parison with the giant cities of the close of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

Imperial Rome, mistress of the ancient world, was a pigmy 
beside London, the capital of the modern world. And London 
of to-day is but a faint prophecy of what will be the London of 
the close of the twentieth century, at the present rate of progress. 
Here in the city is concentrated the wealth of the nation, the 
wealth of the world. Money, and all the power of money, and 
all that money means to society, to commerce, to politics, to the 
masses, to the race, are to be settled here. The influence of the 
city is now absolutely supreme as the governing power. The city 



GOODY-GOOBISM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. Ill 

governs our polities, state and national. The city governs the 
commerce of the world, national and international. The city 
governs the formation of the social structure; it governs fash- 
ions; it rules literature; it controls the press; it makes the atmos- 
phere which those who rule the nation breathe. 

While the growth and importance of the city have been thus 
overwhelming and continuous to increase with incredible swift- 
ness, it is precisely in the city that the failure of the church has 
been most pitiful. Taking the modern world as a whole, Chris- 
tianity has made remarkable progress within the past quarter of 
a century. In America Christianity has advanced with rapid 
strides, taking the country as a whole. We have enrolled 20,- 
000,000 adherents in the United States. We have thousands of 
churches. We are building thousands of new ones every year. 
Church membership has increased in larger proportion than the 
population. Christianity is triumphant along the line, reckoning 
things in their total. 

Our progress in the heathen world has been miraculous. 
Closed gates have opened wdde. Nations have been baptized in 
a day. The ports of the earth are now open to the Christian 
missionary, and thedr triumphs have been miraculous. But here 
our boast must end, and our sorrow begin. This increase has 
been in the small towns. It has been in the country. In the city 
we have not only failed to increase, but Christianity has percep- 
tibly declined in its organic life within the past generation. 

HEATHENISM IN CUE CITIES. 

The old Tw-entieth Assembly District in New York had a pop- 
ulation of 60,000 and there were three little Protestant churches. 
In the whole nation for every 60,000 there are 120 Evangelical 
churches. But there is one district in New York with 50,000 
souls in which there is one Protestant Church. In the heart of 
Chicago there are 60,000 people, it is said, without a single 
church, either Protestant or Catholic. In six assembly districts 
of New York there is a population of 360,000 people, for which 



112 QOOBY-GOODISM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST, 

there are 31 Protestant churches, and 3,018 saloons. The whole 
country east of the Mississippi shows that there are as many 
churches as saloons, and yet for this population in New York, 
larger than the city of Cincinna4;i, there are 100 times as many 
saloons as churches. The First Assembly District of New York 
in 1880 had 44,000 people, 7 Protestant Churches, and 1,072 sa- 
loons — 153 saloons for every church. 

Nor does this failure of church life simply apply to Protestan- 
tism. Our Jewish population has become atheistic and have 
deserted their synagogues by thousands. At an Ingersoll lecture 
one-half the audience will be found composed of Jews, and it is 
a remarkable fact that sometimes whole families will be found 
at these Sabbath entertainments over which the distinguished 
Colonel presides. 

The truth is the city of to-day, the modern city, whether in the 
East or in the West, is a hell, in which the manhood of the na- 
tion is daily being consumed. Materialism is rampant. The god 
of the city is the god of mammon. More and more have the 
stong fallen into this fetich worship. Their motto is **Money, 
by all means, by any means, fair or foul." The hot breath of 
this scourge soon burns out the ideals, the faiths, the hopes and 
the love born into the heart of man under normal conditions. 
The sum total of the forces that affect life in our cities to-day is 
overwhelmingly against the development of a righteous charac- 
ter. The pressure of work is insane. Men are in a fever. They 
do not stop to think. Things high and holy and noble are brushed 
aside in the mad scramble of the modem business world. Men 
are driven to such an intense speed that the moral point of view 
is lost. The reaction from this results in dissipation rather than 
amusement. 

In the reaction from this debauchery of body and soul sane 
amusement seems almost an impossibility; hence the degrada- 
tion of our amusements in the cities to-day. Our theatres wal- 
low in filth. They pander to the gutter. They pander to the 
Bowery. They pander to the vicious in high society and in low 



GOODY-GOOniSM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. 113 

society, and there is scarcely an exception. Gambling is ram- 
pant and opens its thousand doors to all are the young and to 
absolutely destroy. In this pressure of life the social evil is in- 
tensified. Womanhood in degradation becomes a power for evil. 
Saloons have multiplied not only in numbers, but in their power 
for evil, in their attractions, until it is next «to impossible for a 
man with honest intentions in the lower walks of life to live in 
a modern city and keep out of these hell-holes. 

VTLB IjITEKATUBE IN OUK CITIES. 

The reading matter which is provided for this population is 
of the most degraded character. It is thrust under the nose of 
the passing crowd. It is nailed upon the bulletins in glaring col- 
ors. It is circulated among the young and tie foolish, the igno- 
rant and the thoughtless, to bear its fruit of death from day to 
diay. 

The influence in the higher circles of society is irrational,mate- 
rialistic, and tends to destroy reverence, faith and the stability 
of home and home ideals. The people in our cities live in tene- 
ments, live in overcrowded hovels, in which dogs and hogs could 
not breathe, and exist through many generations. It is simply 
a physical impossibility for rational manhood and womanhood 
to be born and reared in such houses, in such streets, and under 
such conditions as exist in our modern cities. This fact is shown 
in the deterioration of the working people. 

It was found recently in London by an investigation, that the 
"submerged tenth'* of the population was not the rural popula- 
tion, which had come into London,but it was the population born 
in London under modern conditions. The countrymen who come 
in to fill the lower walks of life in our cities contain enough vig- 
orous blood to fight their way over the bodies of the weaker men 
and women of the city. Official corruption grows apace in such 
a life. In the midst of this the church is corrupted by the power 
of the rich and conservative, and is asleep with its traditions. 

I am not a pessimist. I do not believe in the triumph of evil. 



114 GOODY-GOOBISM AND THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. 

I bave not drawn this dark picture because I am in despair, but 
we must face the fact. The city to-day is destroying the charac- 
ter and the manhood of the nation. The modern city as at pres- 
ent constituted does not produce men and women capable of 
really fighting the battles of life seriously and to a successful 
issue. The modern city cannot exist but for the blood that pours 
into it from our rural districts, and this blood is consumed from 
day to day in this fiery furnace of a corrupt and corrupting life. 
You cannot point out to me to-day in a single great city of Amer- 
ica a solitary man bom under the conditions of modern city life 
whose influence counts for much in this nation's life. 

Phillips Brooks was born in Boston, but he was born in Boston 
fifty years ago, and Boston w-as a straggling country village at 
that time as compared with the Boston of to-day. The modern 
city, as at present constituted, does not produce men. It cannot 
produce men. If they are born within it, they cannot be reared 
to vigorous manhood. The forces that destroy character are 
overwhelming as compared with the forces that build character. 
The doors that open to destruction are a hundred to one that 
open for life. I do not believe that there has been enough man- 
hood born and reared in our modern cities within the past gene- 
ration to save a single one of them from hell for twenty-four 
hours, if that salvation depended upon the capacity of that man- 
hood for organization, for direction, for production. 

DANGEES OF THE MODEBN CITY. 

I am not a pessimist, but facts are facts. I believe in the race, 
I believe in its future — but what race? The modern city threat- 
ens the future of our nation's life. The smoke and fumes, full 
of disease and of sin and death, that rise to-day from these great 
centres of our life, form a cloud whose threatening storm must 
burst upon the nation in the future. That which is worthy, to 
live will live. Truth will triumph. God will reign supreme. The 
question is, Will you be in that triumph ? 

i believe that the hour is come in which Christian manhood in 



GOODT-GOODISM AND THE SeOURGE OF GHRIS7. 115 

these rapidly developing centres must take a firm stand and 
draw the sword" of the righteousness of Christ and defend its 
strongholds if we are to save the people. Mothers write me from 
country towns to look after their boys and save them. I tell you 
it is next to impossible. The forces tha/t tend to destroy character 
in New York City are 100 to 1. We fight against an army that 
is overwhelming, and we fight with children's toys. We are 
playing with issues, and our enemies laugh at us in our helpless- 
ness. With our delicate white *ties and our clerical-cut clothes 
we are tTifling with the gre-at question of the salvation of the 
people, of a generation, of a race. There are times when Chris- 
#an manhood should take a firm stand. Only in such a stand 
can the people be saved. Our enemies are incapable of persua- 
sion. The devil in the modern city is a Turk in spirit. 

Sir Charles Euan-Smith, the recent British envoy to Fez, in 
the Empire of Morocco, had a perilous experience in the Anti- 
Christian riot. The mission house had been attacked. The win- 
dows were smashed vdth stones. It became unsafe to venture 
in the gardens. As Sir Charles was giving the necessary orders 
for the defense of the mission an embassy from the Sultan ap- 
peared land implored him to go at once to the palace. Courier 
after courier, mounted on magnificent Barbary horses, dashed 
up, repeating the summons. Bending at his feet, they decl^ared, 
"My lord, we pray thee to listen. Our lord beseeches that you 
come to him. He will neither eat nor drink nor sleep nor have 
any peace until you come to him. Our lord languisheth for the 
light of your countenance." No less than twenty of these mes- 
sengers delivered their dramatic summons on the way. 

The Sultan met Sir Charles in great -agitation. "Your life is 
in danger," he said. "Your wife and your people must come im- 
mediately to the palace. The populace is greatly excited against 
you. I can no longer protect you. Come to-night and sleep here. 
In the morning I will send a thousand soldiers to escort you to 
the coast." "Your majesty is mistaken," replied Sir Charles 
coolly. "My life is not in danger. I am in your majesty's safe 



116 GOODY-GOODISM ANJ) THE SCOURGE OF CHRIST. 

keeping." '*! am powerless to protect you," cried the Sultan. 
"If you return to the mission you will be killed." "Perhaps I 
am to be killed," replied Sir Charles. **The mission may be mas- 
sacred, but there will be another British minister in Fez within 
a month, who will be accompanied by a staff as well equipped 
as mine and better, for," added the minister in deliberate tones, 
"then there will not be a Sultan at Fez." 

It is needless to say that Sir Charles ^and the mission were 
protected. The men who were responsible for the riots were 
beaten and imprisoned. The Pasha who urged the mob to stone 
the British vice-consul was fined ^10,000. He crawled on foot 
and placed the money at Minister Smith's feet. He swore on the 
Koran he had not incited the riot. His guards were flogged be- 
fore the palace, and Minister Smith gave the money to the poor 
of Fez and rewarded his faithful servants and soldiers. 

FACE SATAN IN HIS STEONGHOLD. 

So the soldier of to-day has but to face the devil in his strong- 
hold and the victory will be his. The hour has come, if the fu- 
ture of the city is to be Christian, when we must overturn and 
overturn, and with scourge and sword drive out the forces that 
now make life impossible. The prophecy which Dr. Strong 
uttered in 1885 to-day rings in our ears with more startling em- 
phasis than when he first gave it utterance. It is well to read it 
again. Referring to the inevitable crisis which the forces of evil 
are bringing to pass in our modern cities, he says: - 

"When such a commercial crisis has closed factories by the 
ten thousand and wage earners have been thrown out of em- 
ployment by the million; when the public lands, which hitherto 
at such times have afforded relief, are all exhausted; when our 
urban population has been multiplied several fold, and our Cin- 
cinnatis have become Chicagos, our Chicagos New Yorks, and 
our New Yorks Londons; when class antipathies are deei)ened; 
when socialistic organizations, armed and drilled, are in every 
city, and the ignorant and vicious power of crowded populations 



G00DY-G00DI8M AND TEE SCOUBGE OF CHRIST. H7 

has fully found itself; when the corruption of city government 
is grown apace; when crops fail,or some gigantic 'corner' doubles 
the price of bread; with starvation in the home; with idle work- 
men gathered, sullen and desperate, in the saloons; with unpro- 
tected wealth at hand; with the tremendous forces of chemistry 
within easy reach, then, with the opportunity, the means, the 
fit agents, the motive, the temptation to destroy, all brought into 
evil conjunction, then will come the real test of our institutions; 
then will appear whether we are capable of government. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Religion of the Future. 

Does the decay of Protestantism in New York indicate the 
fact that religion in general is on the decline? I do not believe 
it. There are those who assert it. There are those who assert 
that religion belongs to the childhood of the race. That as man 
grows to the stature of intellectual maturity, religion ceases to 
be a necessity. He consequently abandons the temples of the 
• fathers. That this development is inevitable, resistless, means 
the abolition at last of all forms of worship. I do not believe that 
this is true. It is simply an assumption that is not borne out by 
the facts. I believe, besides, it is an assumption born in the pecu- 
liarly personal equation of the man who asserts it. 

Religion is fundamental to man's nature. He can no more 
escape its necessity than he can jump out of his o»wn skin. Reli- 
gion is the effort in man to rise to that which is higher, upon the 
sacrifice of self. It is in the very nature of man thus to strive. 
If a man call himself an infidel, his religion is his infidelity. It 
becomes to him his cause, his purpose, his aim in life, the means 
by which he seeks to rise to the divine above himself. The most 
enthusiastic dogmatists in the world are so-called free-thinkers. 
Mrs. Besant stumped England as an infidel. She has now be- 
come a Hindoo; boasts she has a white body, but a black soul. 
It simply means that religion is fundamental to our very 
natures. 

PBOGEESSION. 

Therefore, the religion of the future will be progressive. It 
will be progressive because it will be vital. Progress is the law 
of life. An attempt to embalm religion means its death. The 



THE BELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 119 

religion of the future will welcome progress. The reason why 
there are so few men in the churches of New York to-day, is 
that the church has ceased to be progressive. Women outnum- ' 
ber men, four to one, in our decaying church-life — why? Be- 
cause the feminine temperament is essentially conservative. 
Woman is the conservator of the race. All radicalism is essen- 
tially masculine, all conservatism essentially feminine. Woman, 
therefore, does not rebel as does man, at the failure to go for- 
ward, to create new forms, new thoughts, new methods. Christ 
Himself declared that He had many things to say unto His disci- 
ples, but that the time was not ripe; they could not bear them. 
"Howbeit," said He, "when the Spirit of truth is come he will 
lead you into the whole truth." In one sense, therefore, the 
Catholic Church is more in line with the church of the future 
than Protestantism. The Catholic Church believes in a progres- 
sive revelation, in the ever-living Spirit within the church. Here- 
in Roman Catholicism is right and Protestantism wrong, for 
this is the re-echo of the promise of Jesus Christ. 
Number Eighteen 

SIMPLICITY. 

The religion of the future must be a simple, as contrasted with 
a formal, religion. Jesus was a form-breaker. He broke the 
Sabbath day. He ate with publicans and sinners, He ate with 
unwashed hands. This was a violation of the fundamentals of 
the ritual of the church of His fathers. The growth of the intel- 
lect of man is coincident with the decay of forms. Forms are 
for those who feel the need of them. The younger the intellec- 
tual development, the stronger is this feeling of need. The reli- 
gion that holds the thinkers of the next: century will not be for- 
mal, but simple. Ou)t of forty-three governors of the States of 
this Union, only seventeen of them are members of the church; 
yet every one of them profess heart allegiance to the religion of 
Jesus. This mean.s that the men of force and of character and 
of individuality, more and more will be disassociated from the 



120 TEE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 

mere formalities of church-life, unless the requirements of those 
forms are made less stringent and less essential. 

IN HAEMONT WITH BEASON. 

The religion of the future will be in harmony with reason, with 
history, with intelligence. Therefore, the clergyman of the fu- 
ture will own a study, a library, not a shop in which he manu- 
factures sermons. He may be charged with tendencies that are 
heretical. Any man that studies must doubt. Doubt is the be- 
ginning of knowledge. No man ever learned anything except 
through the Testibule of a doubt. The man who is afraid of a 
doubt is dead intellectually. Religion must be in harmony with 
the divine light of Reason. I mean by Reason the sum total of 
man's spiritual faculties, including conscience. God has given 
man Reason as the primal light w^hich lights every man coming 
into the world. Reason does not clash with faith; rather it is the 
complement of faith. When Reason has gone to its farthest 
limit, faith reaches forward into the darkness and cries, "I be- 
lieve!" Any religion that clashes with the light of Reason is a 
superstition, not religion. We cannot, in other words, believe 
what we know to be a lie to be the truth. Any man who says 
that he can believe a lie to be true is simply declaring himself to 
be a liar. There can be no clash between Reason and religion. 
Whenever there is a clash it simply means that what we call re- 
ligion is the sheerest superstition. A Britisih critic, in reviewing 
the work of a professor of theology in America, entitled "Ortho- 
doxy and Heterodoxy," says, concerning his attitude to the criti- 
cism of Scripture: "It is devoid of intelligence to the extent of 
being immoral to a man occupying his position." We cannot 
longer teach traditions as the essence of faith. If we teach the 
doctrine of the Trinity it must be a rational doctrine, or it will 
not be held by the dawning century. The Trinity taught in the 
past has been a bald tri-theism instead of a Trinity, and the 
error came simply from the Latin translation of the Bible. The 
word persona meant, in the Latin, the mask through which the 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE, 121 

actor speaks. God in three persons, in the Latin, meant Grod 
speaking through three ohapacters on the stage — one God, there- 
fore, speaking through the mask of Father, Son, Spirit. We 
have lost the meaning of the word persona in our word person. 
Our word person means the individual. Persona meant the mask 
through which the individual speaks. One person, therefore, 
could speak through many masks — so one God speaks through 
three characters. This faith harmonizes with the light of rea- 
son. Such must be the reconstruction of the traditions of our 
theology. 

DEEDS NOT CBEEDS. 

When we worship God we must not worship the devil. We 
cannot define God to be a fiend and call Him good. Upon such 
traditions the conscience of humanity has outgrown orthodoxy. 
The only worship of the religion of the Father must be the wor- 
ship which Christ demanded of His Disciples, na^mely, the ser- 
vice of man. * 'The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister." **As the Father hath sent me, even so I send 
you." And I believe that the Church will triucnph in the cen- 
turies — but what Church? I do not mean by this any ecclesias- 
tical establishment that claims the glories of historic record. I 
mean the Church of Jesus Christ — the Christianity of Christ as 
distinguished from the Christiaoiity of ecclesds stical history. 
The characteristic of that triumphant Church will certainly be 
that its standard will be ethical, not theoretical. The Christian 
world is already a unit on ethics, Christianity is divided on the 
subject of government and a few abstract doctrines. There is 
no division as to the essential ethical code. As to deeds we are 
already one. Our code, the world over, is the Ten Command- 
ments — love to God and love to man. The Greek Church de- 
clares that only this man truly has religion. The Latin Church 
declares that only this man is a true worshipper. The Protes- 
tant Church declares that only the man who complies with the 
requirements of this code is a true disciple of Christ. Whatever 



122 THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 

men may profess, to whatever creed or church they may belong, 
there is but one standard of ethics, to-day for the Christian 
world, and it is the same standard for every division of Christen- 
dom. This will undoubtedly be the first corner-stone of the great 
Church that will triumph in the future — ^the essentiality of deeds 
rather than creeds. 

SAM JONES AND EMEESON. 

The men who succeed,, to-day, in winning the world to their 
religion are precisely the men whatever be their forms of ex- 
pression, who preach, distinctly and forcefully, an ethical gospel. 
I have heard men of the world say that they were disgusted with 
the vulgarity of Sam Jones and wonder wOiy he can succeed in 
reaching and holding and converting to righteousess thousands 
of his fellow men. I have l^eard ministers who prided themselves 
upon their orthodoxy wonder at Sam Jones's success for another 
reason. They said, "He does not preach Christ," does not preach 
the Atonement, the blood; and they marvel at his success. There 
is but one reason for this wonderful man's success, and that is, 
with all the peculiarities of his methods, he preaches with tre- 
mendous earnestness the fundamentals of an ethical religion, 
whose unceasing refrain is, "Quit your meanness." This is sim- 
ply the vernacular translation of tlie message of Christ: "Not 
every one that sayeth unto me *Ix>rd, Lord,' shall enter in; but 
he that doeth the will of my Father." B. Fay Mills is another 
of our successful evangelists. I have known him to hold meet- 
ings in large cities in which the entire business of the communi- 
ty was suspended at noourday to attend the services. This thing 
occurs not once or twice; but it has occurred hundreds of times, 
and it has occurred in almost every State of the Union. What 
is the secret of Mr. Mills's power? I believe it is simply this — 
he preaches, with tremendous earnestness, a profoundly ethical 
gospel. Why is it that Ralph Waldo Emerson, though disasso- 
ciated from any church, possesses a peculiar power over the 
minds of this generation ? He is a teacher of tremendous power. 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 123 

There is scarcely a young man or woman of culture in any Prot- 
estant denomination in New England and the Middle States 
Who is not influenced more or less by this great teacher's words. 
Why has he this power? He teaches the fundamentals of an 
ethical faith. 

That is to say, if you take away from the Christianity of 
Christendom all that reason and consciemce condemns or ques- 
tions, you will have remaining the simple Christianity of Chris-t. 
His religion was a religion of conduct. He never uttered a faith 
He di d not rest on it Himself. He breathed no hope that was 
not His own. And when He spoke of faith He did not mean 
assent to a dogma ; He meant personal devotion to Himself. No 
teacher in the world ever said less about creeds than Jesus 
Christ. His burden was human life. He laid down no dogmas, 
invented no formularies, made no fine definitions. 

Upon the other hand, the Church, in its ecclesiastical develop- 
ment, has been busy discussing abstract and difficult problems 
that ^re of no importance on this earth, beneath it or above it. 
For hundreds of years the ecclesiastics fought like tigers over 
the letter "I" in a Greek word, and knew no more when they got 
through with the discussion than they did when they began. 
The Christian Church was divided into the Greek and Latin di- 
visions by what is called the filioque clause of the Nicene Creed; 
that is, whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and 
the Son, or from the Father alone — and what this means God in 
heaven only knows. Christ certainly made no reference to any 
such nonsensical discussions. His commands were simple, per- 
gonal, vital. "Love one another." *'My commandment is that 
ye love one amother." "Inasmuch as ye did it; enter. Inasmuch 
as ye did it not, depart." The salvation of conduct and of char- 
acter is the only salvation about which Jesus Christ ever spoke. 

HUMANITARIAN. 

The religion of the future in the Church triumphant will be 
humanitarian and it will be humane. It will not, because it can- 



124 THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 

not, damn a world to save a syllogism. The enlighftemed con- 
science of humanity will not tolerate it. It can only take Oalvin 
and Tertullian in broken doses. It will take so much of the or- 
thodoxy of the past as can be reconciled with the enlightened 
Christian conscience of humanity. It will modify, therefore, 
those exaggerations of truth that violate conscience. "I have 
sinned," said Martin Luther, *'bu't Christ has not sinned; sin, 
siin mightily, but have all the more confidence in Christ. We are 
justified by God, gratis. He imputes righteousness to us, which 
makes us directly holy as though we were altogether without 
sin." In (the exaggeration of this doctrine the Reformation will 
have to be reformed. John Calvin speaks of the delightful bene- 
fits of the predestination of the damned. Tertullian, one of the 
fathers, said: "The sweetest music of heaven will be the wail- 
ings of the lost." A Christian minister is reported to have said 
in his pulpit, a few years ago: "My hearers, you may imagine 
that when you are in heaven and look down upon your friends in 
hell, your happiness will be somewhat marred. Not a bit of it. 
By that time you will be so purified and perfected, that as you 
gaze upon that sea of suffering it will only increase your joy." 
Such stuff as this is the vapid raving of insanity, and the en- 
lightened conscience of the humae race has long ago utterly re- 
pudiated it. If this be orthodoxy, the religion of the future is 
certain to be heterodox. 

SAVING POWEE. 

This Church triumphant will have only one mark of its author- 
ity, and that will be its power to siave men. That is the only 
authority which Christ promised. "Ye are the salt of the earth. 
If the salt have lost its savor it will be cast out and trodden 
under foot of men." If it saves, then it is a salt. The church 
that saves is the Church of Christ. The church that gets fright- 
ened by a mob of unwashed, abandoned people, folds up its tent 
and sneaks off uptown to find a soft place to live, has already 
lost its savor and is fit only to be trampled under the foot of men. 
It is useless for such an organiaztion to prate about historic au- 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 125 

thority or historic continuity. The supreme test is the power to 
lift up man and save him — ^^save him, soul and body, for the min- 
istry of Jesus was both to the body and the soul. His ministry 
of healing forms a large part of the record of H's life. 

% 

A SOCIAIi PC WEE. 

This triumphant Church must be a sociul power. It must 
preach a sociological as contradistinguished from a merely indi- 
vidual gospel. Man, to-day, is more than an individuajl. The in- 
dividual has played his part in the development of the centuries. 
This age is a social age, the age of federation, the age of organ- 
ization, of solidarity, of humanity. "No man liveth to himself." 
A gospel that is a vital one, to-day, must touch business, it must 
touch labor, it must touch capital. It musit lay its hand upon 
politics, which is but religion in action. It must know that the 
state is merely the organ of the whole people which they use in 
their pursuit of righteousness. That the state is a function, 
therefore, of the Christian Church that is to conquer the world. 
That ecclesiastical power can never supplant this power, because 
it is in itself more sacred than the ecclesiastic. 

COMMON SENSE. 

Its methods must be the methods of common sense; therefore, 
they will be simple. Wihen Paul went to Athens as a preacher, 
he did not go to the little Jewish synagogue, the church of his 
fathers,and simply say: "I am here to preach the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. I preach it to you, and if you don't believe it you can go 
hell. My duty is done." He went down into the market-place, 
he went to the acropolis where the Ajthendans went to congre- 
gate, to discuss the news. He rose before them, discoursed to 
them about their art, about their literature, their poets and 
sculptors, and, skilfully gaining their attention and interest, 
told them about the monument he had observed to an unknown 
God. This was the entering wedge through which he poured his 
message of love from Christ. In Athens, he was an Athenian. 



126 THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 

Among every people he was all things to all men, if by all means 
he might save some. The church of the future, therefore, will 
not be afraid of sensationalism. 

This church must be honest with men. If there are clerical 
errors in the Bible it cannot contradict the results of the scholar- 
ship of the centuries and expect to live. It must accept these 
results. As a great scholar has so truthfully said: "The whole 
system of traditional orthodoxy, Greek, Latin and Protesitanit, 
must progress or at will be left behind the age and lose its hold 
on thinking men. The church must keep pace with civilization, 
adjust herself to the modem conditions of religious and political 
freedom, and accept the established results of Biblical and his- 
torical criticism and natural science. God speaks in history and 
science as well as in the Bible and the Church, amd He cannot 
contradict Himself. Truth Is sovereign, and must and will pre- 
Tail over all ignorance, error and prejudice." And, therefore, 
the present church will be adapted to the environment of its new 
life. Want of adaptation means death. As a great preacher in 
England has recently said: *' Institutions can only continue to 
exist by adapting themselves to their surroundings. Now the 
church, as we have seen, is quite out of harmony with modern 
civilization. Both morally and intellectually it is centuries be- 
hind the age. The most highly educated people have discarded 
the fundamental doctrines of orthodoxy. Even the average man 
is beginning to look upon those doctrines with suspicion and con- 
tempt. They are opposed to the best instincts of the race, in- 
stincts which are becoming every day more authoritative. The 
church is bound, therefore, to be either reformed or destroyed. 
If it is not reformed from within it will be destroyed from with- 
out. And by reform I do not mesun any patching up of the Arti- 
cles, any tinkering of the Creeds. It must be a thorough, radi-* 
call, absolute reform. It must begin again from the beginning. 
It must take a fresh start from Christ. The last two thousand 
years of ecclesiasitical nightmare must be as though they had 
never been. The church must be born again." 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 127 

This church must, therefore, have a ministry of power. The 
men who shall belong to this ministry must be ordained of God, 
not of man. They must have the primal endowments of a re- 
sistless personality. The standard of the man now applying to 
enter the ministry is below the average of the intellectual attain- 
ments of this generajtion. There are a thousiand preachers around 
this city to-day, therefore, out of a job. They have missed their 
calling. Their real function should have been the development 
of agriculture. When a church vacancy occurs these mien liter- 
ally fall over one another in tthe scramble to get the place. The 
dtay for this sort of minister is gone. Men only of personal, in- 
tellectual power can expect to live in the church of the future. 

TEUTH IN ATiTi. 

This glorious church of the future must be hoinest with church 
history, and, therefore, it must be liberal in spirit. It must re- 
cognize the truth wherever it is found, and return thanks to God 
for every aspect of truth presented by the different developments 
of historic Christianity. It must accept with joy the magmfi- 
cent summary of church history made by that matchless histo- 
rian. Dr. Schaff, just before his death. Hear him: 

"The Greek Church is a glorious charch: for in her language 
have come down to us the oracles of God, the Septuagint, the 
Gospels, and Epistles; hers are the early confessors and mar- 
tyrs, the Christian fathers, bishops, patriarchs and emperors; 
here the immortal writings of Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius and 
Ohrysostom; here the Oecumenical Councils and the Nicene 
Creed, which can never die. 

*'The Latin Church is a glorious church; for she carried the 
treasures of Christian and classical literature over the gulf of 
the migration of nations and preserved order in the chaos of civil 
wars; she was the Alma Mater of the barbarians of Europe; she 
turned painted savages into civilized beings and worsihippers of 
idols into worshippers of Christ; she built up the colossal struc- 
tures of the papal theocracy, the canon law, the monastic orders, 



128 THE RELIGION OF THE FUTUBE. 

the cathedrals and the universities; she produced the profound 
systems of scholastic and mystic theology; she stimulated and 
patronized the Renaissance, the printing press and the discovery 
of a new world; she still stands, like an immovable rock, bearing 
witness to the fundamental truths and facts of our holy religion, 
and to the Catholicity, unity, unbroken continuity and independ- 
ence of the church; and she is as zealous as ever im missionary 
enterprise and self-denying works of Christian charity. 

**We hail the Reformation, which redeemed us from the yoke 
of spiritual despotism and secured us religious liberty — the most 
precious of all liberties — and made the Bible, m every language, 
a book for all classes and conditions of men. 

"The Evangelical Lutheran Church, the first-born daughter 
of the Reforniation, is a glorious Church: for she set the Word 
of God above the traditions of men, and bore witness to the com- 
forting truth of justification by faith; she sitruck the keynote to 
thousands of sweet hymns in praise of the Redeemer; she is 
boldly and reverently investigating the problems of faith and 
pihilosophy and is constantly making valuable additions to theo- 
logical lore. 

"The Evangelical Reformed Church is a glorious Church: for 
she carried the Reformation from the Alps and lakes of Switz- 
erland *to the end of the Wesf (to use the words of the Roman 
Clement about St. Paul); she furnished more martyrs of con- 
science in France and the Netherlands alone than any other 
dhurch, even during the first three centuries ; she educated heroic 
races, like the Huguenots, the Dutch,the Puritans,the Covenant- 
ers, the Pilgrim Fathers, who, by the fear of Grod, were raised 
above the fear of tyrants, and lived and died for the advance- 
ment of civil and religious liberty; she is rich in learning and 
good works of faith: she keeps pace with all true progress; she 
grapples with the problems and evils of modern society; and she 
sends the Gospel to the ends of the earth. 

"The Episcopal Church of England, the most churchly of the 
reformed family, is a glorious Church: for she gave to the En- 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 129 

gilish-speaking world the best version of the Holy Scrii>tures and 
the best prayer-book; she preserved the order and dignity of the 
minisitry and public worship; she nursed the knowledge and love 
of antiquity and enriched the treasury of Christian literature; 
and, by the Anglo-Oatholic revival, under the moral, intellectual 
and poetic leadership of three shining lights of Oxford — Pusey, 
Newman and Keble — she infused new life into her institutions 
and custoniiS, and prepared the way for a better understanding 
between Anglicanism and Rom^anism. 

*'The Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the most flourishing 
daughter of Greneva — as John Knox, 'who never feared the face 
of man,* was the most faithful disciple of Calvin — is a glorious 
Churc^h: for she turned a barren country into a garden, and 
raised a poor and semi-barbarous people to a level with the rich- 
est and most intelligent nations; she diffused the knowledge of 
the Bible and a love of the kirk in the huts of the peasant as well 
as the places of the nobleman ;she has always stood up for church 
order and discipline, for the rigQits of the laity, and,first and last, 
for the crown-rights of King Jesus, which are above all earthly 
crowns, even that of the proudest monarch on whose dominion 
the sun never sets. 

"The CongregajtionahChurch is a glorious Church: for she has 
taught the principle and proved the capacity, of congregational 
independence and self-government, based upon a living faith in 
Christ, without diminishing the effect of voluntary co-operation 
in the Master s servi-ce; and has laid the foundation of New Eng- 
land with its literary and theological insititations and high social 
culture. 

"The Baptist Church is a glorious Church: for she bore, and 
still bears, testimony to the primitive mode of baptism, to the 
purity of the congregation, to the separation of church and state 
and the liberty of conscience; and has given to the world the 
"Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan, such preachers as Robert Hall 
and Charles H, Spurgeon, and such missionaries as Carey and 
Judson, 



ISO THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 

"The Methodist Church, the Churdi of John Wesley, Charles 
Wesley and George Whitefield — three of the best and most apos- 
tolic Englishmen, abounding in useful labors, the first as a ruler 
and organizer, the second as a hymnist, the third as an evange- 
list — is a glorious church: for she produced the greatest religious 
revival since the day of Pentecost; she preaches a free and full 
salvation to all; she is never afraid to fight the devil, aaid she is 
hopefully and cheerfully marching on, in both hemispheres, as 
an army of conquest. 

*'The Society of Friends, though one of tiie smallest tribes in 
Israel, is a glorious society: for it has born witness to the inner 
light which 'lighteth every man that cometh into the world' ; it 
has proved the superiority of the Spirit over all forms; it has 
done noble service in promoting tolerance and liberty, in prison 
reform, the emancipatiooi of slaves, and other works of Christian 
philanthropy. 

"The Brotherhood of the Moravians, founded by Count Zin- 
zendorf — a true nobleman of nature and of grace — is a glorious 
brotherhood: for it is the pioneer of heathen missions and of 
Christian union among Protestant churches; it was like an oasis 
in the desert of German rationalism at home, while its mission- 
aries went forth to the lowest savages in distant lands to bring 
chem to Christ. I beheld with wonder and admiration a vener- 
able Moravian couple devoting their lives to the care of hopeless 
lepers in the vicinity of Jerusalem. 

"Nor should we forget the services of many who are accounted 
heretics. 

"The Waldenses were witnesses of a pure and simple faith in 
times of superstition, and, having outlived many bloody persecu- 
tions, are now missionaries among the descendanits of their per- 
secutors. 

"The Anabaptists and Socinians, who were so cruelly treated 
in the sixteenth century by Protestants and Romanists alike, 
were the first to aise their voice for religious liberty and the vo- 
luntary principle in religion. 

^'Unitarianism is a serioiis departure froi» tlie trlnitarian f aitb 



THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 131 

of orthodox Christendam, but it did good service as a protest 
against tritheism, and against a stiff, narrow and uncharitable 
orthodoxy. It brought into prominence the human perfection of 
Christ's character, and illustrated the effect of His example in 
the noble lives and devotional writings of such men as Channing 
and Martineau. It has also given us some of our purest and 
sweetest poets, as Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow and Lowell, 
whom all good men must honor and love for their lofty moral 
tone. 

"Universalism may be condemned as a doctrine; but it has a 
right to protest against a gross materialistic theory of hell with 
all its Dantesque horrors, and against the once widely-spread 
popular belief that the overwhelming majority of the human 
race, including countless millions of innocent infants, will for- 
ever perish. Nor should we forget that some of the greatest 
divines, from Origen and Gregory of Nyssa down to Bengel and 
Sdhleiermacher, believed in, or hoped for, the ultimate return of 
all rational creatures to the God of love, who created them in 
His own image and for His own glory. 

**And, coming down to the latest organization of Christian 
work, which does not claim to be a church, but which is a help 
to all churches — the Salvation Army: we hail it, in spite of its 
strange and abnormal methods, as the most effective revival 
agency since the days of Wesley and Whitefield ; for it descends 
to the lowest depths of degradation and misery, and brings the 
light and comfort of the Gospel to the slums of our large cities. 
Let us thank God for the noble men and women who, under the 
inspiration of the love of Christ, and unmindful of hardship, ridi- 
cule and persecution, sacrifice their lives to the rescue of the 
hopeless outcasts of society. Truly, these good Samaritans are 
an honor to the name of Christ and a benediction to a lost 
world." 

The cJiurch of the future will be heir, conscious heir, with 
gratitude to God, to these priceless achievements, will gather 
them up as her own treasure, and one in Chrisit press forward 
to the conquest of the world. 



APPENDIX. 



u 



What are the Churches Going 
TO Do About It?" 



I beg leave to reprint as an appendix the following remarkable pamphlet 
which was Issued by the eminently conservative gentlemen who sign it while 
I was preparing the manuscript for this book. T. D., Jr. 



Prefatory Note. 



We pray your consideration of the facts herein presented. 
They have been gathered by the committee appointed at a meet- 
ing of pastors of various denominations, and were presented at 
a special meeting of clergymen and laymen representing several 
denominations. 

At the latter meeting they were regarded of sufficient import- 
ance to become the basis of organization of tihe Federation of 
the Churches of New York City. 

In preparing the circular letter accompanying this, it was 
found that there was ne*ed of presenting more fully the reasons 
why the churches should co-operate. 

At (the meeting on the twenty-first of October this statement 
was ordered to be printed and sent to each pastor in the city. 

We therefore submit these facts, hoping that you will feel 
with us the desirability of such federation. Any doubt of the 
accuracy of the statistics herein presented emphasizes the need 
of securing a careful canvass of the whole city by interdenomi- 
national action. 

In behalf of the Federation by the Special -Committee, 

The Eev. Anson P. Atteebuey, D. D. 
E. B. CoE, D. D. 
** C. S. Haeeowee, D. D. 

J. M. Phelputt, D. D. 
** J. B. Eemensnydeb, D. D. 

* ' Heney M. Sandees, D. D. 

•* Heney A. Stimson, D. D. 

J. Wintheop Hegeman, Ph. D. 
Chairman. 



Relation of tlie Churcties to Our Social 

Life. 



The churches of New York City are not acoomplishing their 
social mission. Any one may be convinced that this is a fact by 
a study of the average church life as related to the physical, 
economic, social and spiritual interests of the home life of our 
city. 

Under the present condition of disunion, churchism and indi- 
vidualism, the churches never can accomplish their social mis- 
sion. 

Yet upon them rests the responsibility of securing the moral 
or spiritual foundation of social well-being, and of doing the con- 
structive work of city civilization. The churches can do this. 
Only the churches can do it. By their aim they are committed 
to it. By their constitution they are fitted for it. 

The 555 churches, with their clergy and 400,000 clientele, form 
first fruits of the new creation to be leaders and helpers of every 
home and social relations they come into touch with every hu- 
man interest. By being organized into churches they have the 
capacity of direct action and possess various functions for the 
expression of their complete life. 

Notwithstanding, there never has been put forth a serious and 
business-like effort to save New York City. 

These members are the choice spirits of the city, owning more 
than one-fourth of our wealth, leaders in reforms, founders of 
charitable institutions and of colleges, and capable by concen- 
trated effort, wisely directed, to effect any desirable purpose for 
social, civic or ecclesiastical well-being. 

Instead of these resources having been used, it is the shameful 
truth that not one-hundreth part of the power of the churches is 
operative. 

The aim of the churches is to bring all the interests of this line 



186 APPENDIX. 

into harmony with the principles of the kingdom of heaven, to 
do the will of the Father on earth as it is done in heaven, and as 
first fruits of the new creation to be leaders of every movement 
movement working for righteousness. 

The present arrangements for influencing siociety in accord 
with such a purpoise would show that there fhas been no serious 
attempt made to realize that end. The average church life has 
fallen to the pitiable position of loyalty first to the church. It 
has even disclosed disloyalty to the Christ, in that its policies 
have not revealed that it has been loyal to the church for the 
sake of the Christ. 

The churches know well that aM social reforms begin among 
the humble citizens and work upward. Yet, In this most demo- 
cratic country, the churches are our most 'arisitocratic institu- 
tions, more aristocratic than those in any pant of the world. 

Church members voluntarily place themselves under the law 
of love to God and to neighbor as to self. This love works out 
ideal homes and a desire that other homes should be pure and 
clean and sw^eot. It is the source of public spirit when enlarged 
to .the wish to secure best social conditions for -all. It causes 
patriotism when extended to interests which work for national 
good. 

Clergymen as a class have not shown love of neighboring cler- 
gymen as of selves. They have not expressed practical sympa- 
thy with the problems and conditions of the workingmen. They 
have not sought the salvation of those most needing it as con- 
spicuously, -at least, as those whose membership would enlarge 
their clientele. They have not been identified with movements 
to purify municipal life and to improve the conditions which 
make best American citizens. 

The churches may disclaim the function of direct and corpo- 
rate action, but they do affirm the theory of elevating society by 
diffusive personal influence. 

Even in this position, the churches of New York City are not 
accomplishing their social mission. 



APPENDIX, 137 

Back of each church should be the whole church. The most 
meagre knowledge of our churches points to struggling churches, 
forlorn hopes, and pastors breaking down under the burden. 

At the point of the strongest attack, reserves should be mass- 
ed. There are no reserves, no central authority, no directing 
head. 

Truth should be sown among the people. Up-town and central 
churches are elevators, shooting every week wunnowed grain 
upon the same hearers. Not a grain for hundreds of thousands 
of citizens whose lives are worth cultivating and who sttarve for 
lack of the bread of life. 

The lights are clustered and the dark places are blacker. The 
leaven and the masses are far apart. Not the ninety and nine 
are to be left and the one nought. To-day there are ninety astray 
and ten folded. 

The leaven is placed as far away from business centres as con- 
venient. The masses live as near to business as possible. Leav- 
ening is not an easy matter. 

One who is thoroughly acquainted with the church and the 
charities iit inspires may claim that there is no need or room for 
any more work. He may rightly point to organizations and 
functions for every imaginable need. He may catch the enthu- 
siastic spirit of altruism everywhere abounding in good works. 
He may eloquently tell the story of /the founding and results of 
our Department of Public Charities and Correction, public 
schools and nigtht schools. Health Department, church charities, 
shelters, lodgings, nurseries, employment societies, asylums, 
hospdtals. Charity Organization Society, Children's Aid, Improv- 
ing the Condition of the Poor, and others equally commendable. 
He may affirm that such a-n exhibit is a better book on the evi- 
dences of Christianity than any ever written. 

Yet, most of the misery met by these agencies could not exist 
had the churches done their duty in preventing the operation of 
causes producing these evils. The necessity of some of these in- 
stitutions is a shame to our civilization. 



138 APPENDIX. 

We are not careful enough to destroy the germs of moral and 
social ills. Our zeal in trying to heal the disease is therefore less 
commendable. 

If the chupclies cannot destroy the moral microbes and secure 
homes against a pestilential atmosphere by the inspiration of 
the Holy Spirit, they will surely fail in accomplishing their social 
mission. 

In view of the emergency that confronts the churches, chal- 
lenging their ability to meet it, in view of the heavy responsibil- 
ities weighting the churches to show thia;t applied Christianity 
is adequate to elevate society to its ideal and n'ormal condition, 
and considering the fact that the church has not yet made any 
earnest, concerted and scientific effort to act corporately or dif- 
fuse its resources adequately, the question is agitating — then, 
what are the churches going to do about it? 

They will do nothing until they feel the necessdty. They can- 
not do anything until they have data sufficient to see what should 
be done. We therefore submit evidences of existing conditions 
which make it impossible for the churches to fulfil their social 
mission in New York City. We point to a few of the causes 
which have produced these conditions. 



Causes and Evidences. 



The causes in the churches themselves which prevent the real- 
ization of the hig-hest social mission are denominational individ- 
ualism and "churchism." Denominational individualism has 
placed its churches without regard to interdenominational comi- 
ty. Denominational glory haiS aroused the ambition of ministers. 
Churches have been located in reference to a good clientele, in- 
cidentally for saving all sorts and conditious of men. 

Competition has been a principle of action. As a result we 
have to-day too many churches, and we have not enough church- 
es. Too many for the church-goers. Too few for the reail work 
to be done by churches. Too many in one locality. Too few 
where most needed. 

Another effect has been overlapping of work, causing waste 
of workers and money. Between the interstices of this over- 
lapping tliousands of neglected souls have fallen to ruin. 

Churchism determines the location of a church and its char- 
acter by its clientele. It causes the church to exist for itself aa 
an institution. As money must be had to support it, it must lo- 
cate where a few wealthy people live, or where many welMo-do 
persons may be reached. As a result, the poor and those most 
needing saving influences are neglected. 

The church on this basis must move with its supporting mem- 
bership. 

It has not heeded the law that if a church, as truly as a man, 
would save its life it must lose it. Consequently we have wealthy 
churches that are dead to the purpose of their real existence, 
and churches among the poor practically dead as to support and 
equipment, but behold, -they live in the power of the spirit. 

Also, churchism prevents a relization of the broader relations 
of the church to its denomination, to the church at large and to 



140 APPENDIX. 

the kingdom. One camnot see the kingdom because of the 
churches. 

By it church members cannot have the inspiration of the high- 
est motives which cause liberality, personal service and spirit- 
uality. 

These causes have prevented any interdenominational effort 
to swing the resources of the churches against evils which threat- 
en social well-being, and any comity which might secure such a 
distribution of churches as to man every strategic position with 
strongest Christian influences. 

We place in evidence the situation of the churches, showing 
how inadequately denominationalism and churchism have caus- 
ed the location of centres of Ohristian work. 

The canvass of St. Augustine's parish under the auspices of 
the Church Temperance Society has given valuable statistics 
which we may use in connection with our own study of church 
disitribution in the city. 

One district with a population of 16,391 bodies has one saloon 
to every 111 inhabitants, and one church to every 8,196. (See 
chart No. 1.) 

This means that lit pays brewers to locate saloons among the 
poorest classes. It means that the church members possessing 
one-fourth of our wealth evidently do not think that it will pay 
to put there more than one church to over 8,000 souls. Each of 
these churches has at least 7,000 persons outside of its clientele 
whom it cannot possibly reach by even its indirect influences. 
What «are the churches going to do about it? 

The situation is worse in another district, with one sialoon to 
every 158, and one church to every 9,422. (See charts No. 2.) 

The saloon has been to hundreds the only shelter on vnld, 
stormy nights. The churches are occasionally open to s<atisfy a 
desire which is felt by only a few. The churches are never 
crowded beyond their capacity, which is adequate for the de- 
mand. 

It should be noted that with decreasing church privileges comes 



APPENDIX. 141 

shrinkage of church clientage. With increasing of church staff 
of workers comes improvement of neighborhood and faith in the 
church. Beyond the reach of these dhurches are 8,000 souls for 
each church. What are the churches going to do about it? 

In the third district the situation is worst of all. Among 49,- 
359 inhabitants there is one saloon to every 208, one church to 
every 9,872. With such a ratio what are the churches going to 
do to save our city? Such evidence tliat these people do not want 
the church is the very reason why the churches should distribute 
their full energy among them so ^as to cause them to want a 
church. (See charts No. 3.) 

It has been estimated that the 90,000 inhabitants of this par- 
ish pay annually into the saloons a;n average per individual of 
$75. The average 'amount paid by each church member every 
year to all church expenses and work is not over $30. It may 
readily be seen that if these people want a church they can pay 
for it. To make them want it — ^that's the crux of all our work. 
The sadness of it is that they oare less and »less for it, because 
they feel that no one cares for them. Were the whole energy of 
the churches put forth at once, it would be too late to bring this 
generation into the Kingdom. It is not too late to save the chil- 
dren. 

In this one parish 27,000 souls beyond the touch of the church- 
es! What are the churches going to do about it? 

We submit the condition of churches as related to social life 
below 14th Street. With a population of about 700,000 what can 
the few churches do toward the constructive work of our civili- 
zation? From January to May of this year six of our most active 
pastors have resigned because they eould not endure the s-traiu 
and because the resources at their commaad were pitiably in- 
adequate to relieve the distress which begged assistance. 

Including in church clientage all children and occasional at- 
tendants, there are, outside of the direct touch of church influ- 
ences, about 400,000 souls. 

What can the 8 Baptist churches with 2,992 members effect 
alone there? Or the efficient city missions with 2,500 members.? 



142 APPENDIX. 

Or both combined with 7 Reformed churches, 6 Lutheran, 16 
Presbyterian, 18 Methodist, 21 Jewish, 22 Episcopal and 28 Ro- 
man Catholic? One hundred and thirty-five churches, including 
small missions and schools, are doing all that they can with the 
means at their command. Add to them the charitable institu- 
tions and residential settlements and distribute all agencies so 
that in each ward every siocial need should be met by a special 
function for its relief, still the churches Avould be powerless to 
perform their function of transforming home-life by personal re- 
generation. Outward changes of circumstances without inner 
Change of life is labor in perpetuity. 

We have made special investigations of a section on the west 
side of the city up-town. This section includes the old Ninth, 
Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Seventeenth Assembly Districts, con- 
taining about 200,000 inhabitants. The churches distributed 
there are 7 Baptist, 1 Lutheran, 9 Methodist, 6 Presbyterian, 5 
Reformed and United Presbyterian,7 Episcopal,12 Roman Cath- 
olic, and 9 other denominations. (See charts No. 5.) 

Everj' church or chapel is worked to its utmost, and yet there 
are more thau 100,000 souls beyond the reach of all these 
churches. 

In a section between 24th and 59th Streets, west of Eighth 
Avenue, there is but one church to 10,561 of population. 

In the same, west of Ninth Aveoiue, one church to 14,580; west 
of Tenth Avenue, one to 31,926. 

West of Tenth Avenue, between 40th and 64th Streets, there 
is Oinly one church. There are 46,563 people living in that dis- 
trict. 

It must not be thought that there are not enough churches 
within reach of these multitudes if they wished to go to them. 
The significance lies in the fact that the churches are not doing 
ajnything to cause them to wish to go. Also, that such people 
are not desirable material for membership of church life as bas- 
ed on "Churchism.** They are not material for the clientele of 
the churches. Therefore they are not sought and churched are 
oot placed in their midst. 



APPENDIX. 143 

It is said that between 86th and 138th Streets, east of Fifth 
Avenue, there are 223,000 souls, and that a certain denomina- 
tion has but one church in that district. In the same district, 
wes-t of Fifth Avenue, there are 72,000 souls, and this denomi- 
nation has nine churches among them. This illusti*ates "church- 
ism! (See chart No. 5.) 

When throughout the city you trace the direct and indirect in- 
fluences of church life upon the people you find a churchless pop- 
ulation as large as the city of Brooklyn. 

What are the churches going to do about it? 

The full significance of these statistics is not felt until an 
analysis is made of the intellectual, social, civic, economic and 
spiritual condition of the churchless masses. 

Each individual is a person. Personality is the greatest thing 
in the universe. 

Some of these churchless ones are homeless. Thousands live 
in cheap boarding houses; 360,000 in the slums. According to 
Oarroll Wright's census, 37.69 per cent, are unable to read or 
write, 52.44 per cent, are voters, 62.38 per cent, were born in 
countries in a civilization foreign to the genius of our institu- 
tions. In our tenements there is an average of 37 persons to a 
dwelling. 

The unit of the social organism is the home. The type of larg- 
er social life is found in the relationships of family life. 

The specific object of social work by the churches should be 
the child. In these tenements are 147,000 children under five 
years of age; 50,000 are school truants. Thousands are com- 
pelled to work who should be at school or at play. 

Bad homes make bad children. Over half of the young crim- 
inals in Elmira Penitentiary come from bad homes. 

Bad streets make them worst; 97 per cent, in this penitentiary 
come from bad street associates. 

Bad surroundings destroy possibility of mature strength. The 
diseases of 600 children examined were traced to their surround- 
ings and not to hereditary predispositioii, Medical examination 



144: APPENDIX, 

of 530 of the tenement children showed that only 60 were 
healthy. 

Ignorance of how to live and how to meet emergencies causes 
loss of life. ''Poverty 'and ignorance kill and cripple more than 
disease germs." 

The children of parents who, when very young, were made to 
work are predestinated to criminal careers, idiocy, imbecility or 
insanity. 

"Child labor, the source of untold miseries to society, has in- 
creased during the last fifteen years over 100 pej cent. Thiis, in 
spite of compulsory laws." In 1887 the Commissioner of Labor 
for New York State officially wrote: "Year by year we have 
seen an increase in the demand for smaller and smaller children 
until it became a veritable robbery of the cradle to supply them." 

Ex-Supt. Byrnes has said: "The tenement is one of the big- 
gest cogs in the machine that makes criminals. Its assocdutions 
are dangerous to the purity of women and the honesty of men. 
It is certain that the overcrowding of tenements must fill chil- 
dren's minds with vicious and wicked knowledge." 

What are the churches gx)ing to do about it? 

The church at large has not lifted its voice against these evil 
conditionis or swung its forces las a unit in behalf of the social, 
civic, indusitrial or spiritual elevation of these homes. 

It is moral character that affects our social and civic condi- 
tions and largely fixes economic values. 

We submit that character-making is a function of the church- 
es. This will always be left to the churches. In view of the 
evidences what are they going to do about it? 



Federation of the Churclies— The Remedy. 



The problem for the churches to solve is how to bring such 
conditions into harmony with the laws and ideals of the King- 
dom of God. 

Before anything can be done, social facts must be carefully 
ascertained so that we may know what is needed. The work of 
existing societies must be examined so that its value may be de- 
termined, its lack supplemented and its weakness made strong. 
The resources and reserves of the churches must be applied to 
overthrow evils and to maintain whatever is good. Loyalty to 
the Christ must precede loyalty to the church. The true aim of 
the body of Christ must clearly be kept in sight. The harmoni- 
ous working of its members must be secured. 

The method of Christ and of the Apostles in working reform 
from the bottom of society upward must be adopted by the 
churches. The Church of Jesus Christ is eminently for work- 
ingmen. The "Labor Church" can never be a substitute for it. 
Human well-being must be sought directly for the s^ake of the 
man, without any reference to even indirect gain to the church. 

The present arrangements and locations of churches and agen- 
cies need readjusting to secure economy and greatest efficiency. 
The power of the whole church must be felt to be behind each 
church in order that the weakest may be honored — just as the 
whole personality is back of the function of each member of our 
body. 

It must be maintained that the churches are adequate to effect 
social reforms. Tha4; the passionate altruism which is doing so 
much in organizing relief for every possible need cannot take the 
place of the personal sympathy and love inspired by the Christ 
as a transforming or reforming agent. That socialism of city 
or State simply throws upon the churches a heavier degree of 
responsibility to form the best character. 



U6 APPENDIX. 

We must remember that after twenty years of "Practicable 
Socialism" in Eas/t London, Canon Barnett, of Toynbee, con- 
fesses to disappointment in the results — ^"'the standard of life is 
still far lower than it should be." 

It is evident that such a problem appeals to all the churches. 
No one denomination can work it out. Each denomination is 
inextricably involved in it. The solution demands interdenomi- 
national action — not undenominational. United effort of all 
churches is necessary whenever public sentiment is to be agitat- 
ed or public opinion directed in right direction. 
. Instead of united sentiment and clearness of testimony, we 
have had an occasional' sermon, a casual recommendation, an 
official deliverance. Nothing concentrated — no action all along 
the line. 

To cause the opinion of the churches to be respected, there 
should be a common expression through some common medium. 
To direct opinion, the church and press should unite in simulta- 
neous agitation on all social and civic interests. 

Interdenominational action is necessary to secure means to 
prevent waste by overlapping of work, to voice common senti- 
ment, express common sympathy, apply the concentrated power 
of the churches when necessary, to co-ordinate the work of the 
charitabie institutions, to use their functions and strengthen 
their effectiveness, and to do everything to realize the social mis- 
sion of the kingdom of Christ. 

It seems that the most practicable method by which interde- 
nominational action m.ay effect such an end is federation of the 
individual churches. Such federation would secure a representa- 
tive body which, through its members, would practically unite 
all the churches on a common basils and be in touch with each 
of them. 

It would elect a Central Council, made up of one clergyman 
and one lay member from each denomination. This Council, 
while having no authority over the co-opeiMting churches, would 
be the governing body of the Federation. It would appoint com- 



APPENDIX, 147 

missions and committees, and recommend sudh action to the con- 
sideration of the co-operating churches as would tend to secure 
the social mission of the churches. 

The discussion of its recommendations and the presentation 
of the ascertained needs of our city by experts would practically 
form an interdenominational social union with its many advan- 
tages. 

It would furnish an occasion for the interchange of methods 
of church work and the discussion of questions of mutual in- 
terest. 

It would present to the world an object lesson of the structure 
of the kingdom — each denomination preserving its individuality 
and all co-operating in love and strength for the purpose of 
bringing the joy of heaven into the homes on earth. 

It would show the practical creed of all the denominations. 

It would affirm the living Christ as the basis of union. 

It would present a sense of united action from which would 
arise a motive so strong that under its pressure workers and 
money would be consecrated to the work of saving the homes of 
our city. 

It would awaken a power which intelligently directed and per- 
sistently appMed could effect any desired reform. 

This, we believe, is the only practicable remedy under present 
conditions. The time is ripe for it. The pressing question then 
is, "Whajt is my church going to do about it? Canton Westcott 
has said: "If the church is to perform its social function there 
must not be a single person in it without a ministry for others. 
The way of action will be made clear as soon as the spirit of 
action has gained power," 



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